
Class r 1 ^ l» y> 

Book J 




m 




ONE WAY ROUND 
SOUTH AMERICA 



AM i 




CROSSING THE ANDES, USPALLATA PASS 



ONE WAY ROUND 
SOUTH AMERICA 



From Manuscript, Notes and Letters of 

DELIGHT SWEETSER PRENTISS 

Author of 
One Way Round the World 



ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 



pribate Cftitiou 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright 1905 
The Bobbs-Merrill Company 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

FEB 12 '906 

ft Copyright Entry 
CLASS „ <X XXc, No. 

13* $$ * 

' " COPY B. 



I 



>3« 



tf 



"GRAVE ON THY HEART 
EACH PAST RED-LETTER DAY; 

FORGET NOT ALL 
THE SUNSHINE OF THE WAY." 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Start by Freight Ship ... i 

II Paris, the Beautiful ..... n 

III Southward Through Spain ... 23 

IV On the S. S. Thames for South America 40 
V Beguiling Bahia ...... 48 

VI Rio de Janeiro 55 

VII The Great Power Plant at Parnahyba 70 

VIII The Argentine Republic .... 86 

IX Across the Andes 101 

X On the Pacific 115 

XI The City of Pizarro . . . . . 129 

XII A Woman's Impressions of a Bull-Fight 139 

XIII In the Land of Panama Hats ... 159 

XIV Across the Isthmus . . . . . 169 



ONE WAY ROUND 
SOUTH AMERICA 



ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

CHAPTER I 

THE START BY FREIGHT SHIP 

New York was delightfully gay and smiling 
during the few days that we spent there before 
sailing away on our big loop round South Amer- 
ica via Europe. After all it is hard to find an 
avenue more charming than Fifth, or a thorough- 
fare more interesting than Broadway. Or is it 
affection for them makes one think so? We 
need not leave the United States for the wonder- 
ful, the beautiful, or the thrilling. Each country 
is interesting in its own way, and ours has such 
varied interests. 

We fortified ourselves for foreign things to 
come by seeing Bernhardt in V Aiglon and John 
Hare in The Gay Lord Quex; the former an im- 
pressive presentation in Rostand's beautiful facile 
verse of the pathetic career of the delicate un- 



2 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

happy child of the great Napoleon ; the latter the 
well-played but unpleasant comedy of present-day 
English life. 

Our freight ship chose to sail in the early 
morning, so we went aboard at night after the 
theater, a curious sort of time to go to sea. The 
wind blew fresh and the stars shone bright as we 
crossed the ferry, a favorable omen it seemed to 
us for our long journey. It was unkind of fate, 
was it not, to start us away from so unromantic 
a quarter as Hoboken, we two honeymooners ? 
Hoboken does not sound well, and we dwelt in 
preference on the aristocratic title of our steam- 
ship, the Patricia. 

Once on the dock the very atmosphere was 
changed and we sniffed a foreign breeze. Ger- 
man vocables filled the air. As we trotted help- 
lessly along after the rotund individual who had 
secured our hand baggage and taken us in 
charge, a portly official with a star on his coat 
stepped up and accosted F — , who was smok- 
ing. "Make dot light out," he said. Beyond a 
doubt he belonged to the Fatherland. Our travels 
had begun. 



THE START BY FREIGHT SHIP 3 

The Patricia, long may she float! takes a lei- 
surely ten days to make the journey from New 
York to Cherbourg and leaves it to the grey- 
hounds to break records. She is slow, to be sure, 
but steady and full of the excellent qualities that 
the slow-going and easy often possess. The Patri- 
cia is almost, if not quite, as large as the best pas- 
senger steamers, but broader and steadier and 
with much more commodious cabins, too, so that 
she is a joy to all and a comfort to those who 
suffer, as Mrs. Partington expressed it, from that 
terrible "nashua." Our state-room proved to be 
large, nearly big enough to swing a kitten in, if 
not a full-sized cat, with a lounge, closet, drawers, 
and hooks, and handy pockets in all the available 
space. On the lounge we found letters, telegrams, 
papers and packages, making us realize that we 
were off for foreign shores and these were the ten- 
der good-bys of thoughtful friends. It is so sweet 
to be remembered, and every time I opened a letter 
I made a fresh resolve to do the same thing for the 
first friend leaving New York. 

This crossing the Atlantic on a freighter is an 
experiment indeed for us. F — says it is an inspira- 



4 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

tion of mine, and it does seem to be promising. 
From the genial captain, big and jolly, whose 
sonorous "J a " and hearty laugh often resound 
among the passengers, down to the last steward, 
there was the same desire to add to the passengers' 
pleasure, to make all the days at sea happy ones. I 
must tell you that the big captain's favorite pet is a 
tiny canary bird in his cabin. It makes me think of 
my far-away Peterkin, though 'tis not so sweet a 
singer. What fun we had at the captain's dinner, 
with speeches and toasts, what hearty good will 
toward all ! Incidentally we enjoyed the fine Ger- 
man cooking and did complete justice to that 
crowning dainty peculiar to special ship dinners, 
the softly illuminated ice-cream. The jests, the 
gay laughter, and all the leisurely luxuries that 
go so well with ocean travel on a freight ship 
were ours. 

There is probably no place in the world where 
people associate in quite the same relation as 
they do on shipboard. A turn of Providence, or 
Fate, as you will, throws a company of people 
from the four quarters of the globe together for 
a season and isolates them completely from the 



THE START BY FREIGHT SHIP 5 

outer world. They impart information, learn 
from one another, excite a mutual interest, and 
then pass on in their different directions with 
hardly a likelihood that they will meet again. 
Their lives are tangent thereafter and affect one 
another no more. Do you ever think of the great 
company of those whom you are destined to meet 
as you journey through life, those whose paths 
are bearing toward yours, some perhaps yet 
unborn, who will finally play a part more or less 
important in your life, possibly all important ? 

Of good company on our ship there was no 
lack, — a varied collection of people of whom it 
might be interesting to tell. When I speak of 
good company my pen flies to the notable name 
of Mr. Poultney Bigelow, traveler and writer, 
toastmaster and prince of good fellows. He is 
devoted to his sweet young daughter, calling her 
Babby, while she calls him Popsy, and their com- 
radeship is very pretty to see. As the Japanese 
would say, "He is an Ichi-Ban (number one) 
dancer," and when I told him so he said the com- 
pliment reminded him of a place in Japan they 
called "Throw Away Brush." A noted Japanese 



6 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

artist once came there, looked about at the in- 
comparable scenery, then threw his brushes away 
in despair. But, oh! how I wished I had read 
something by Mr. Bigelow, as F. F. P — has ! 

There was Mrs. M — , an American married to 
a major in the German army, whose life in Ger- 
many has been a most interesting one, and her 
sister Miss B — , a rose of a girl, a real American 
beauty. A lieutenant of the United States Navy 
sits beside her at the table, and his position seems 
fraught with danger of another sort than that 
threatening him when he was on the Concord in 
the battle of Manila. 

The mother of the five Kinder all in a row over 
at the other table proved to be a Russian, a Mrs. 
Petroff from St. Petersburg, who had been living 
the past two and a half years in Philadelphia, 
while the father inspected the construction of 
some Russian men-of-war that were building in 
the Cramp shipyards. The cunning little folks 
have odd Russian names. Vasilie, the smallest, 
has not learned Russian yet, and the other night, 
when the ship rolled most, he said, "I don't like 
this house any more. I want to go outside." 



THE START BY FREIGHT SHIP 7 

There was Mrs. C — , fine daughter of a fine fa- 
ther, who carries the charm of the cultivated, cos- 
mopolitan side of Washington about with her, and 
Felix, truly a dear boy, so bright and attractive. 
Felix sold his bicycle for a dollar before leaving 
Washington and bought an Ingersoll watch. The 
changing of ship time twice a day just suited him 
and he spent a good deal of time regulating that 
watch. 

There was a trained nurse from San Francisco 
on her way to Spain, where she was again to have 
the care of a Spanish nobleman who was nursed 
by her some years ago while he was in San Fran- 
cisco. How easy to weave a pretty romance out 
of this adaptable material ! Blessed be sentiment 
and the undying romances of the heart! Who 
would banish these sweet fancies ? 

It was the second day out that I asked a bit 
of a man in a red tam-o'-shanter where he lived. 
I learned afterward that he had been homesick 
in the morning, so my question was unfortunate. 
A solemn expression settled on his round little 
face, and, pointing a fat finger back over the 
stern of the ship, with quivering lip, he said, "I 



8 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

live that way." It was only after a consultation 
with his mother that he was able to tell me that 
he lived in "our house" in Minneapolis. When 
we sail away from home, I think we all have a 
rather solemn feeling at the bottom of our hearts 
that we live "that way." 

Then there were Germans, men with families 
and without, who have lived in Mexico, in Cen- 
tral and South America, everywhere that a busi- 
ness opportunity could be found, as the progres- 
sive Germans have a way of doing. 

At one table was a group of horsemen, own- 
ers, managers, and drivers, who were taking a 
string of eighteen American-bred trotters over 
to Vienna, all of them valuable and able to go at 
a pretty clip, the least valuable worth fifteen hun- 
dred dollars. Contralto, 2:093-4, is worth 
six thousand five hundred dollars, and the horses 
are not insured, rates being so high. It was one 
of our daily pleasures to go down with the chil- 
dren to see the horses, and feed them carrots 
and sugar. They had a place forward on the 
main deck, and were beautifully cared for, as 
thoroughbreds should be. None of them suf- 



THE START BY FREIGHT SHIP 9 

fered severely from seasickness, though I fancied 
they all wore a wondering-, disturbed expression, 
as if they couldn't understand what it all meant : 
this queer motion in the floor and the occasional 
smart slap of a wave against the port-hole. 
Horses get very tired during a voyage, and must 
have a good rest afterward. I was surprised to 
learn that some of them are so discomposed by 
the unusual conditions that they refuse to lie 
down during the entire voyage, so their poor legs 
are quite worn out in the struggle for equilibrium. 

We had all sorts of weather, storms and sun- 
shine ; the sea like a mill-pond to-day, to-morrow 
with big rolling waves; but we are all of the 
opinion that the Patricia is remarkably steady, 
though our slow progress would certainly give 
pater familias the fidgets. 

The night we came into Plymouth there was a 
cry all over the ship, "The Deutschland! The 
Deutschland !" We all rushed up on deck, of 
course, to satisfy our ten. days' accumulated curi- 
osity. At a little distance to port we could see 
the big ship, now queen of the Atlantic, which had 
fun from New York to Plymouth in five days, 



io ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

seven hours and thirty-five minutes. Oh, how- 
pretty she was ! Her black hull was lost against 
the inky sky and water but her shape was out- 
lined by hundreds of twinkling lights ; a shining 
phantom ship she was, a pretty vision that sped 
swiftly along and soon left us behind. The 
Deutschland had sailed from New York three 
days later than we and went into Plymouth ahead 
of us! For a moment we slow-going folk felt 
a bit humiliated by such a display of speed, but 
soon thought better of it and congratulated our- 
selves when we heard that the Deutschland had 
rolled and pitched heavily in the same sea that 
we had taken so quietly. 

The lights of Plymouth shone dimly through 
a drizzly rain. How like England to be damp 
and rainy! I suppose such a reception would 
have warmed an Englishman's heart and made 
him feel delightfully at home again. 

It is nine o'clock p. m. as I write, and these 
awful Germans are getting ready for another 
meal. I hear the dishes rattling. 



CHAPTER II 

PARIS, THE BEAUTIFUL 

An Indiana philosopher says, "If any man be- 
lieves this world isn't a sad place, let him eat 
breakfast early at a restaurant of a rainy morn- 
ing." The world at any place and in any weather 
saddens me at half-past five in the morning. At 
daybreak we were at Cherbourg. It is a strange, 
lonesome world when one crawls out of bed in 
the early morning, but it was delightful to find 
a number of our genial company up at that hour 
to see us off, a compliment I shall always treasure. 
After many good-bys and good wishes we 
crawled down the gang-plank to the tender that 
was to carry us ashore. The last thing I saw 
as we moved away was Felix, dear little fellow, 
running out to the stern, and then the faint flutter 
of his handkerchief. Several times we looked 
affectionately back at the good Patricia, whose 

screws were already turning. The sky had taken 

ii 



12 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

on the bluish tint of sunrise and a band of coral 
pink lay along the horizon at the west, above 
which hung a shining crescent and the bright 
morning star. How like England to give us a 
foggy reception, and how like France to be clear 
and sunny! 

The custom officers were complacent, and we 
were soon free to depart for the station, bag and 
baggage. We peeped eagerly out of the rattling 
omnibus. As a little German girl said, "Oh, it 
is so nice to see a little land !" There were the 
poke-bonnet roofs, the foreign signboards, the 
early morning street-people slipping about in 
sabots, the blue unbelted blouses and roomy 
trousers of the workingmen, the pagoda-like little 
buildings decorated with newspapers and maga- 
zines, the horses so amusingly far ahead of the 
big-wheeled heavy carts — everything that is 
France! Against the now bright sky we could 
see the outlines of an old fort high up on a noble 
hill where it must command a magnificent view 
of the sea. In the square in front of the station, 
companies of soldiers were drilling in a manner 
warranted to give a good appetite for breakfast. 



PARIS, THE BEAUTIFUL 13 

Though 'twas December, Normandy looked as 
it does in our early spring. The flower venders 
were offering fragrant bunches of lilacs, and the 
fields were brilliant with green. The moist sea 
air fosters all growing things. The farm-houses 
and the fertile, well-cultivated country are a 
never-ending delight. Everything is old, old, 
old. The fathers and the grandfathers and the 
great-grandfathers must have lived in these same 
quaint houses with low side walls and sloping 
thatched roofs that droop over them. In the 
yards are curious flattened fruit trees that are 
trained against the walls like a vine. The orch- 
ards are venerable and hoary. Their gnarled, 
twisted limbs are covered with gray feathery 
moss, and in the branches hang round bunches 
of pale mistletoe that look like big green thistles 
in an airy perch. Many of the trees have their 
trunks entirely hung with green vines. The vil- 
lages that nestle under the hills, with their buff 
walls and heavy red-tiled roofs, look quaint and 
interesting. For a bit of bright color you must 
look at the plump rosy cheeks of the white-capped 
Normandy peasant girls. At dusk we arrived in 



14 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

Paris, the beautiful. The wonderful, fascinating, 
matchless Paris! I love it. 

You know on what light wings time flies when 
one is in Paris ! Even with F — away on business 
in London, Berlin and St. Petersburg and only 
back for a few days at a time, a month has slipped 
away. Christmas has come and gone, not like 
the Christmas at home, where we would like to 
be, but our very first Christmas together, and we 
enjoyed it in the French style. We celebrated the 
Reveillon (Christmas eve) walking about in the 
brilliant boulevards, having supper at a cafe and 
coming in at two o'clock in the morning! At 
that hour the boulevards are as gay and full as 
they are in the early evening, and the cafes ablaze 
with lights and brilliant toilets. We wanted to 
attend midnight mass at the Madeleine, and 
planned to reach the church at n 115. We were 
there right on the dot, but found the church dark 
and a great crowd outside. "It has been full the 
past hour," an agent of police told us! One of 
my precious gifts was a tiny fiddle-de-dee of a 
pistol about an inch and a half long that really 
shoots with a large-sized report. It's the cun- 



PARIS, THE BEAUTIFUL 15 

ningest of all my miniature treasures, and has 
quite captured my heart. 

The New Year's reception at the Ambassador's 
in his beautiful hotel was stunning. It was 
formerly the residence of Baron Spitzer, a col- 
lector of note. The collections are now gone, but 
the interesting wall-decorations remain. About a 
dozen rooms were thrown open to the guests, 
and I had the felicity of renewing acquaintance 
with some old friends and meeting new and 
charming people, American, French and Russian. 
A niece of Rosa Bonheur told me the story of 
the curious will, of which you have read, no 
doubt, that the famous, eccentric old artist left, 
and how, rather than drag the affair through the 
courts, they compromised by yielding one-half 
of Madamoiselle Bonheur' s considerable fortune 
to the new-found favorite. 

I have been bubbling over with pleasure at get- 
ting back to Paris, and F — says teasingly he has 
never enjoyed himself so well, having some one 
along now to talk back to these reprobate cockers, 
whose manners are so bad and whose vehicles 
are so shabby. We drew a particularly surly one 



16 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

the other day, who either didn't know or didn't 
want to know our destination, but I settled him 
by stopping for a conference with the agent of 
the police. After that he went along quite 
meekly. After all, Americans ought not to quarrel 
much with the cab-men who will take them from 
one end of Paris to the other for the bagatelle of 
thirty cents, a franc and a half. There have 
been many changes in Paris and some improve- 
ments that we note. The handsome new Pont 
Alexandre is beautiful, probably the finest bridge 
in the world, with its artistic green bronze lan- 
terns, its gilded groups of statuary, built the year 
of the Exposition in honor of the czar. How well 
the French do these things, how inimitable their 
touch ! The public buildings of Paris always seem 
to get into good hands. We had a spin on the 
new underground electric railway, and found it 
a great convenience, though not yet completed to 
its full extent. 

The Comedie Francaise smells heavily of fresh 
paint, but we saw a charming play there that 
was entirely free from the intrigues that are the 
nauseating feature of so many French plays. 



PARIS, THE BEAUTIFUL 17 

Being quite proper, there were a great many 
sweet young French girls in the audience. Are 
not all young girls sweet, a joy to the world? It 
does one's ears good to hear such perfect French 
and one's eyes good to see such perfect acting as 
one finds at the Comedie. 

The other day we took a runabout automobile, 
the best vehicle yet for seeing the sights, went by 
the Champs-filysees to the Bois and through to 
St. Cloud, up to the old Palace garden, then 
back on the other side of the Seine, all at a rip- 
ping speed. The sun was shining bright and I was 
delighted to see the old familiar places again, 
though wishing a hundred times for some other 
dear friends to share our pleasure with us. 

We have revisited our first meeting place at 
Madame's in the dim old Victor Hugo drawing- 
room opening into the author's little garden, and 
have recalled the gay evening thereafter, with all 
the family together at the Folie Bergere and our 
discovery of Mr. H — in the box next to ours, 
whom we had last seen in Hong Kong. We went 
round to see if my old friend, Madame le Cros- 
nier, of Avenue Wagram, still lived. I asked 



18 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

the concierge about her and held my breath till 
she said, "Oui, Madame est chez elle" then ran 
up the steps with the odd feeling one has in re- 
turning to a place long ago familiar. 

Madame was in the salon, knew me instantly, 
and was surprised and pleased to see me. She is 
just the same quick-witted, clever, wonderful old 
lady — eighty-three now — only a little more deaf. 
"I miss hearing such a lot of nonsense," she said. 
"But you," in her brusque and funny way, "it does 
me good to hear you talk. You have sense 
enough to speak slowly and distinctly." She told 
me sadly that her old age is full of heavy bur- 
dens and she is weary of life. She quoted from 
the Bible the allotment of three-score-years-and- 
ten and the sorrow that comes thereafter. I felt 
a great sympathy for her, though she is no weak- 
kneed complainer, and made me laugh a dozen 
times with her sharp speeches. Once, on the 
subject of massage she said, "I hate to be pawed." 
She mistook F — for a clergyman, which amused 
him mightily. 

I went again to the Bon Marche and found it 
jammed with shoppers, a confusion approaching 



PARIS, THE BEAUTIFUL 19 

pandemonium, and I made a vow never to put 
my nose in a big- store again, but hereafter go to 
the smaller shops and cheerfully pay their extra 
price. (F — and I have made the embarrassing 
discovery that most of the French hose are not 
long enough in the feet for us!) Together we 
dropped into the Opera one evening to see the 
ballet and last act of Samson and Delilah. It 
was pleasant to be there again, but oh, the dis- 
illusionment of years is coming, and the Opera 
was not the enchanting place it seemed when 
first I saw it! Poor-Ruskin, I begin to realize 
how, as he grew older, his judgment and know- 
ledge grew, and things became less and less per- 
fect to him. Don't you remember when we were 
in Venice how we used to be irritated by his 
criticisms ? I shall consider his experience a warn- 
ing, and not learn so much of art or anything 
as to take away my pleasure. In these days of 
uncertain art standards, when "What is art?" is 
a moot question, when error follows error and 
certainty is never reached, perhaps, as Josh Bill- 
ings says, "It's better not to know so much than 
to know so much that ain't so." 



20 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

We went to the Hotel Drouot, where I have 
always wanted to go, a bee-hive of a place, 
swarming with people interested in the sales con- 
ducted in the salles. It was fun to bid, and I had 
knocked down to me a small shell box with a 
sweet old ivory miniature in the lid for twenty- 
four francs, worth all of that, no doubt. I would 
never have the patience to poke round in the 
Hotel Drouot to unearth whatever treasures there 
may be from the piles of rubbish. Even the 
products of the fine workers of the world are be- 
wildering and wearisome when in such enormous 
heaps. The number of curio and antique shops 
in this town is amazing. The fad is now at fever 
height, but I am already tired of their good, bad 
and indifferent stuff, and never stop to look in 
their windows as I did of yore. The rage for 
art nouveau is more interesting as evidenced in 
original and artistic jewelry, porcelain and glass. 
Some of the furniture, too, is not bad. Per- 
haps it is well to approve of some modish things, 
clothes, for instance, whether they are really 
pretty or not. 

I have had some large-sized regrets and been 



PARIS, THE BEAUTIFUL 21 

a little lonesome at times with F — away, espe- 
cially when going over the ground trod before 
with dear ones, but I prefer being alone to having 
poor company, — so I try to be consoled. When I 
pass the clocks of the Herald office, Avenue de 
TOpera, I look at Chicago time and wonder what 
the home folks are doing at that moment. When I 
see the scrumptious jewelry in the Rue de la Paix, 
I sigh for my girl friends to Oh ! and Ah ! with 
me. 

What do you think has happened? Nothing 
more nor less than an addition to our family in 
the shape of a typewriter, an American machine 
sold here under a French name, the Dactile — 
weighs but six pounds and fits into a small case. 
F — decided he couldn't keep house any longer 
without one, so here it is. He thumps away at it 
as pleased as a child with a new toy, and I haven't 
been able to get him away from it since it came. 
His first essay was a letter to me that took him 
three hours, and we shrieked with laughter over 
his struggles to express tender sentiments. 

The weather here is cold, cold, and you know 
how these economical French never will burn 



22 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

enough fuel to keep a house comfortable, so it is 
only in my cozy room that I am ever warm, and 
that at two francs fifty per bushel for coal. I 
have been digging away at my Spanish again, 
four lessons a week, with some French history 
between times. The professor, a handsome 
Spaniard of sixty years, who fills the room with 
his gestures and strides about as he teaches, pays 
me all sorts of compliments on my accent and 
"facilidad" and I am to have an opportunity to 
practise in the mother country before I try my 
Spanish on the South Americans, for we have 
decided to go via Madrid, Granada, Seville and 
Toledo to Lisbon, and there take the English 
steamship, Thames, which sails from Southamp- 
ton for Rio de Janeiro. 

How fortunate I am to have this journey into 
unknown lands, this new field for eager travelers, 
this country too little known. I hear that Per- 
nambuco, Bahia and Rio are hot, hotter, hottest. 
Only a sheet of tissue paper between them and 
an unmentionable place, as they say of Aden. 
Won't it seem strange to plunge from winter into 
midsummer ? 



CHAPTER III 

SOUTHWARD THROUGH SPAIN 

The train de luxe from Paris to Bordeaux, 
said to make the fastest run in the world, carried 
us away from a handsome new station at the Quay 
d'Orsay toward the south. This train de luxe is 
sadly expensive, and is luxurious by contrast only. 
It would not answer the demands in our country, 
but the sleepers and dining-cars are fair, and I 
suppose the unhappy French may be reconciled 
to paying fourteen dollars for an indifferent 
night's rest. Considerable effort has been wasted 
on the red plush and leather upholstering, as in 
our own unsanitary and ugly Pullman sleepers. 
This time we fell victims to the charms of 
Touraine, another delightful province of France, 
with its rows of stately Lombardy poplars, its 
orchards only a shade less venerable and moss- 
grown than those of the north, the carefully- 
trimmed trees that border the pleasant water- 

23 



24 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

ways, the soft shades of gray and buff and brown 
of their boles, like the lichens that cling to the 
rocks. Orleans, with its fine cathedral rising high 
above the town, was enticing. And Poitiers, oh, 
what a quaint, fascinating city, zigzagging up 
and down the sides and running along the crest 
of two spurs which overhang the river, red-roofed 
and picturesque to a degree ! We have promised 
ourselves to come again to Poitiers and wander 
at leisure through its curious streets. Alas, the 
world is so big and we must leave so much un- 
seen to the right and left as we journey through 
it! Rural France is delightful even to those who 
like nature best in its wild, untrained state; the 
order, the care, the neatness, the study that has 
been made of every variation of the earth's sur- 
face, the trimming of every branch and twig to 
make all symmetrical and fruitful, are admirable. 
The train we took from Biarritz to St. Sebas- 
tian was a perfect joke. It showed the least haste 
of any train I have ever met, stopping every- 
where, apparently, though we didn't much mind, 
for the views from the car windows were pleas- 
ing as we wound among the low spurs of the 



SOUTHWARD THROUGH SPAIN 25 

Pyrenees that run out to the ocean. At Irun, 
the frontier, I first tried my lately-acquired Span- 
ish on the Spaniards, and ordered a chicken sand- 
wich from a waiter without injuring him, — even, I 
fancied, with credit to myself. Oh, this affair of 
languages, what a comedy it is, sometimes akin 
to tragedy ! 

F — says that for years he has wanted to see 
Spain and has anticipated its wonders, has pic- 
tured in his mind the lofty Pyrenees, the semi- 
tropical vegetation, the picturesque costumes of 
the men, the beautiful dark-eyed women, the far- 
famed Prado, the famous Madrid itself, to say 
nothing of galleries, ruins and old castles. He 
expected to find all these just as he had treas- 
ured them in mind for many years, ever since 
studying their history in a school and, a little later, 
reading of the country which, some four hundred 
years ago, was one of the most famous and influ- 
ential in the universe, really mistress of the world. 
The time of year, of course, is bad, the tour too 
brief, too small a part of the country is seen, and 
yet he feels that his dream has vanished, and he 
is greatly disappointed. 



26 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

Our first stop on Spanish soil was at Gain- 
churisqueta, which sounds larger and more im- 
portant than it looks. At St. Sebastian we began 
to see dark-mustachioed men walking about in 
long capes, the type pf Spaniard who plays the 
heavy villain in melodrama. The Plaza del Toro, 
or Spanish bull-ring, that objectionable but na- 
tional institution, we now saw for the first time. 
To what can I compare it? Imagine one of our 
huge oil-tanks, or city gas retorts, painted in gay 
colors of red, yellow and black, pierced with 
regularly recurring arches for entrance, then un- 
roof it and seat it in amphitheater fashion, in- 
close the center by a railing, and you have a 
present-day bull-ring. A more classic compari- 
son would be the Roman Colosseum, of which 
it is evidently an evolution. We did not have an 
opportunity to see the cruel sport in Spain, even 
if we had wished, for the best bull-fighting has a 
regular season, beginning in the spring and last- 
ing until late in the fall. There was advertised, 
however, a special fight at Madrid for a certain 
feast day soon. The nipping, frosty January 
weather made the thought of an afternoon in the 



SOUTHWARD THROUGH SPAIN 27 

open air anything but alluring, but I suppose the 
devotees of bull-fighting are like our football en- 
thusiasts and never mind the weather. It just 
depends on one's bringing-up as to a taste for 
either. 

The Iberian peninsula is so effectually sep- 
arated by mountains from the rest of Europe as 
to give rise to the French proverb, "Africa be- 
gins at the Pyrenees." 

We crossed the Pyrenees near the coast, so of 
course did not see them towering up to the blue 
dome of heaven, the summits beyond the reach 
of the naked eye — as they should have been! 
The railroad climbs up some four thousand five 
hundred feet to the pass and affords a number 
of fine views, but nothing remarkable. Imme- 
diately upon descending to the Spanish side you 
are on a rocky, treeless plateau, then a sandy, 
treeless plateau — dreary miles and miles of it — 
clear to Madrid. 

We wanted to see the country, so stopped at 
Burgos for the night. We reached there at ten 
p. m. on a beautiful, clear, moonlight night. As 
we were to depart at half after five the next 



28 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

morning", we went right down and saw the 
famous cathedral by a silver moon that was 
nearly full. It was built in twelve hundred and 
something, and so was the grand gate, I suppose, 
and the wall, and possibly some of the many 
buildings that cluster about and nearly hide it 
from view; everything, I believe, but the impos- 
ing front and beautiful spires. Twas a rare 
pleasure to see this fine old edifice by moonlight, 
and we were thankful for the opportunity. In 
the morning as we came down to the hall at the 
entrance of the miserable hotel, we found two 
Americans and a guide waiting for the omnibus 
to take them to the same train we were planning 
to take. They were with us all the time until we 
left Madrid, and we found them very agreeable 
companions. 

All the hotels in Spain charge exactly as those 
in the United States, on the American plan — 
that is, so much per day, everything included. 
At Madrid we tried the Hotel Paris, a charming 
hostelry, where we had two rooms, one being 
used as a salon, and the charge was only thirty- 
five pesetas per day for the two; one peseta is 





TERRACE OF THE ESCORTAL 



SOUTHWARD THROUGH SPAIN 29 

equal to eighteen cents in our money, so we paid 
but six dollars and ten cents. Everything con- 
sidered, this is the best hotel for the money we 
have found in all Europe. 

Spain's capital is not beautiful for situation, 
Philip the Second having chosen about the most 
undesirable part of the country for it : a high, bar- 
ren, dun-colored, wind-blown plateau, said to be 
unhealthy, too, but commanding passes connect- 
ing the south with the north of Spain and France, 
and a geographical center. Modern Madrid is 
not typically Spanish, being quite like most other 
cities of importance in other countries, and of no 
peculiar interest; but old Madrid looks oriental 
with its narrow, crooked streets and motley, fan- 
tastic bazaars. We enjoyed the Prado, the 
Champs-filysees of Madrid, and saw many beau- 
tiful equipages there, always a pleasurable sight. 
I read that in the province of Madrid alone are 
found more than three hundred and fifty species 
of butterflies. Does this account for the Spanish 
love of brilliant color in dress ? 

The Escorial, that wonderful piece of kingly 
extravagance and folly, a great palace and mon- 



30 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

astery in memory of the martyred St. Lawrence, 
is some twenty-eight miles northwest of Madrid. 
Train service is so miserable that it takes an en- 
tire day to see it and get back to the city. This 
massive and gloomy gridiron-shaped structure is 
full of interesting courts and rooms, but is cold, 
cold, no heat at all within its walls, and one needs 
warm weather and a clear sky to enjoy it. The 
church is beautiful, a copy of St. Peter's at Rome, 
and we admired it far more than anything else. 
The monastery adjoins the church. Philip the 
Second's cell is on a level with the floor of the 
high altar and separated from it by a glass door. 
It was in this cell and at this very door that he 
lay dying while the rich tones of the favorite 
organ soothed his weary, wicked soul and the 
last sacrament was administered. The library 
would have interested S — . It has a small but 
choice collection of rare old volumes, richly il- 
lumined by the monks, one being made as early 
as 976. 

The ancient city of Toledo is about fifty miles 
south of Madrid. It was for us far and away 
the most interesting sight in Spain. It is com- 















l r • f- 




J a ■ 


» 


■ i t i 

b J JU 






1 I 




















&!■■> 




!^^ 
















*^.~- 




- " *> - 












HP, i 

9 


f¥ 
















^K^|* 





BRIDGE OVER THE TAGUS. TOLEDO 



SOUTHWARD THROUGH SPAIN 31 

pactly built on a rocky hill, with the river Tagus 
circling- one-half of it, and three walls built at 
different periods, one dating back to 900, inclos- 
ing all. The buildings and walls are of a brown 
sandstone, which age has given a rich gold-brown 
color exactly suited to the old city. We are 
taken in a coach drawn by three horses abreast 
and go galloping up a hill, through a fine old 
Moorish gateway, over a stone bridge that looked 
a thousand years old, underneath which the 
Tagus rushes on its way to Lisbon; then up a 
long winding street under old historic walls to 
the top, which lands us in a tiny plaza, the largest 
in Toledo. The driver cracks his whip and we 
go for a black slit between two houses which, to 
my surprise, proves to be another street; we can 
reach out on either side and touch the buildings. 
There is a sudden stop, a great shouting, and we 
look and see a diminutive burro with water bot- 
tles, blocking the way. This patient beast will 
not move, so a lot of boys pull and push him into 
an arched doorway. This wedge being withdrawn, 
we proceed to the hotel without further difficulty. 
All the streets are narrow and winding, fully as 



32 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

hard to follow as those in a Chinese city. The 
scenes, as one strolls about, are of indescribable 
interest, and make up one of the many charms of 
the place. The cathedral is grand, sublime, the 
finest I have seen. 

We had planned to leave Madrid, for Lisbon 
Saturday night. That morning I went over to the 
Wagon-Lits office with F — to engage a sleeper, 
and there learned that there was a strike on the 
road over which our tickets read. Everything 
tied up ! The mails sent through with a military 
escort! Here was a pretty howdy-do! If we 
didn't get there by Tuesday morning we should 
miss the steamer and there would be no other for 
two weeks. As we couldn't wait for a settle- 
ment of the trouble, although we had already 
paid our passage all the way to Rio — sixty 
pounds, if I remember — we had to take a round- 
about way, so bought tickets via Medina del 
Campo. 

We had used up all the morning fussing over 
tickets and a little shopping. The afternoon had 
been reserved for the art gallery. After lunch 
we hurried over to the entrance and found it 



SOUTHWARD THROUGH SPAIN 33 

closed ! This one visit we had been saving up so 
carefully landed us at the door on a holiday! 
My Spanish at that moment was worth all the 
time I had devoted to it, for, after some parleying 
with the doorkeeper and a tip, he let us in and 
furnished one of the guards to take us about. 
This old man proved too full of information, 
was slow, but knew the history of every picture. 
I understood him very well, so we saw the pic- 
tures under more favorable circumstances than 
usual. The many and great masterpieces by 
Ribera, Velasquez and Murillo were a treat to 
look upon, and will remain with me many, many 
years. 

You know what a severe test of one's disposi- 
tion traveling is, and here the slow-going Span- 
iards make the strain greater. F — gets woe- 
fully provoked at their laziness; you know how 
he hates laziness in man or animal, but he has 
to depend on me to do the scolding here. The 
fact that he can not expostulate with these people 
himself makes their shortcomings annoy him the 
more. I translate his protestations into a much 
milder form, for I have more sympathy with the 



34 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

lazy. It always amuses me to see F — out of pa- 
tience, for an exhibit of temper is so foreign to 
him. Yesterday he was in a particularly severe 
mood with a slow and stupid fellow down at the 
station, and was provoked with me because I 
would not fight with him in French or Spanish. 
(I thought he was doing very well.) Later, 
when we got around to laughing about it, I told 
F — that the only person he does not dare fight in 
this country is "wifie." He retorted that I had 
completely gone back on my avowed theory that 
husbands and wives should stand by each other 
in everything, right or wrong, and that I had re- 
fused to fight for him. Oh dear, what tangles 
you do get into when you are traveling in strange 
countries! but they all straighten out, and, for- 
tunately, you carry away the memory of only the 
agreeable things. 

At eight p. m. we were at the station and soon 
in a compartment with two gentlemen. They 
proved to be a French engineer and his assistant, 
who were to change cars at our station. We 
conversed a part of the way, and the rest of the 
six hours of gloom was spent in trying to keep 



SOUTHWARD THROUGH SPAIN 35 

warm. At two a. m. Medina was reached. This 
railroad junction had a dirty row of old build- 
ings for a station. Attached to one was a res- 
taurant, with four cells and single beds in each. 
We had to remain there eight hours. It was out 
of the question to hang around for that length 
of time, so for warmth we tackled one bed, and 
thereby gained a little comfort, some rest, and 
many fleas; but we paid only sixty-three cents 
for our room, two breakfasts and a proportion- 
ately generous tip to the waiter ! Everything was 
scrupulously clean, and the breakfast was good. 
The train de luxe arrived at ten o'clock. This 
train runs to Lisbon but twice a week, and it 
was a great piece of luck on our part to catch it. 
The time from there to Lisbon is eighteen hours, 
the railway running almost due west to the Port- 
ugal frontier. The scenery as far as the frontier 
was the same dreary plateau that we had had be- 
fore. After crossing into Portugal it commenced 
to be more interesting. The soil improved and 
the inhabitants seemed more industrious. The 
little patches of tilled ground showed green, and 
trees and bushes were in blossom, but before we 



36 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

had traversed many miles it grew dark, so we 
must have missed seeing the most interesting 
part. 

As we rolled into the Lisbon station at two 
in the morning, we drew long sighs of relief, for 
now we were sure to catch the steamer. In an 
open carriage we were whirled through the 
streets, up hill and down, at a speed that was 
positively frightful. Driving is the only thing 
done with speed in the Iberian peninsula. I un- 
derstood later why we went so quickly: cabby 
was giving us the worth of our large bill. The 
Braganza Hotel seemed to be peacefully sleeping, 
not a sign of life at the entrance or in the hall. 
We noticed a door under the stairs, entered by it, 
and found the porter fast asleep. Our trunks, 
satchels, camera and typewriter were all depos- 
ited at the door, and then cabby was asked his 
price. I nearly fainted when I heard, "Two thou- 
sand rets!" This must be almost the amount left 
on our letter of credit, I thought. It took F — 
some time to bring him down to twelve hundred 
and just about as long to convince the astonished 
F — that it only amounted altogether to ninety-six 




LISBON 



SOUTHWARD THROUGH SPAIN 37 

cents! One hundred rets are worth about eight 
cents. The enormous totals of a few purchases are 
appalling, and each time I faced them I had a feel- 
ing that our money would not hold out. The hotel 
bill was twenty-seven thousand seven hundred 
and fifty-five rets. Wouldn't that jar even a 
banker? It looked so funny to see hats in the 
windows marked six thousand and eight thou- 
sand reis, veils three hundred and fifty and four 
hundred, and so on. Wouldn't that discourage 
the most zealous shopper ? 

The morning was clear and balmy, and when 
the sun rose we thoroughly enjoyed walking 
about and thawing out our bones. F — said it was 
the first time he had been warm since leaving 
New York. 

Lisbon was a charming surprise to us both. 
The grass was green, apple and peach trees in 
blossom, and oranges for sale that were picked 
in the city. For beauty of position Lisbon has 
the third place in European cities. Only Con- 
stantinople and Naples excel it. It is built on 
seven hills and every available foot of ground 
is used. All the buildings are of sandstone or 



38 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

marble, and appear to be piled one on top of the 
other. As you look down on the city from the 
elevation of the botanical garden, you see noth- 
ing but tiled roofs and white streets. Lisbon's 
beauty and cleanliness are due to misfortunes. 
Plagues, earthquakes and tidal waves have vis- 
ited it, followed by improved restoration and 
greater beauty. There are many curious sights 
and historical places to visit, but we had to pass 
them by, as we had no time for anything but a 
little shopping and the garden. History is piled 
up in this Iberian peninsula even as the houses are 
piled up on one another in this fascinating city. 
My Spanish again serves me here in Portugal, 
and I manage to make myself understood, but 
Portuguese seems to be Spanish gone wrong. I 
discovered that the Portuguese use the Chinese 
word cha for tea. Probably they were the first 
to open up trade with China and bring tea to 
Europe, so gave it the Chinese name. 

There was no mail at Lisbon, except, of course, 
from Sharlie, who is a wonder for catching mails. 
F — says she is a trump because she always gets 
some word to him, no matter in what corner of the 




A STREET IN LISBON 



SOUTHWARD THROUGH SPAIN 39 

globe, and she can figure out to the very delivery 
at which the postman will toss mail in at the door. 
F — says to tell Dad that he found some cigars 
in Lisbon that are just right, but he does not dare 
give the brand for fear Dad will insist on im- 
portation. Our shopping in Spain and Portugal 
was mostly in the way of Spanish books (one of 
these was El Allegoria del Capitan Ribot) and 
music, though we did purchase some of the in- 
crusted or Damascened steel and gold work 
which belongs to the country. 



CHAPTER IV 

ON THE S. S. THAMES FOR SOUTH AMERICA 

How futile it is to plan to do this and that on 
shipboard ! One never does them. I always in- 
tend to accomplish wonders, but once I get aboard 
I find myself a veritable Spaniard for putting 
things off till manana. I can not concentrate my 
thoughtlets sufficiently to write about what we 
have seen and are seeing. 

Here we are on the Thames, St. Valentine's 
day, lazily sailing along in the southern Atlantic, 
hunting cool and breezy corners. It seems pass- 
ing strange to be in ducks and straw hats when 
two weeks ago snow lay on the ground in Madrid 
and we sighed to be in some place where we could 
get warm. The thermometer hovers around 84 
degrees day and night, which is really very re- 
spectable weather for the torrid zone. Last night 
the southern cross hung clear and sparkling in 
the southern sky, and at half after two we crossed 
40 



ON THE STEAMSHIP THAMES 41 

the equator. This passing into the southern 
hemisphere was an event for me, and I greatly- 
regretted that it occurred at such an unseemly- 
hour. I wanted to have sensations and feelings 
at the portentous moment, but couldn't decide 
to keep my sleepy self awake till so late an hour. 
This is F — 's fifth trip across the equator, and by 
far the coolest, he says. The chief officer told 
me tales for an hour last evening of the celebra- 
tions that take place on crossing the line on sail- 
ing vessels, when Father Neptune comes on 
board — a curious Father Neptune, with raveled 
manila rope for a beard, a trident of bread sticks 
— and superintends a series of wicked tricks that 
are played on the poor greenies who are crossing 
the line for the first time. 

There has been a heavy swell most of the time 
since we left Lisbon, and the Thames, which has 
an unusually light load, has rolled merrily, so 
that my elbows and toes are tired with the effort 
to hang on to my seat and to the floor. I don't 
mind the rolling so much as some other things, 
the smells, for instance, which are terrific. The 
kitchens are along under the promenade deck, 



42 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

and ventilate to it, so you can imagine the torture 
our poor noses endure, especially mine, which is 
like my mama's. 

I have felt quite humiliated to go to the wall, 
figuratively speaking, in a rather smooth sea 
when I have distinguished myself in so many 
rough ones. It may be because of some hundred 
or so dear little red radishes that I ate in Lisbon. 
Anyway, I was upset, and understand better why 
some people do not hanker for sea voyages. F — 
was a perfect angel when I was not well, and 
did everything to help me. 

The clear skies and light winds have been 
daily the same, as monotonous a stretch of sail- 
ing as one would find. It's an untidy ship and 
poorly managed from top to bottom, the captain 
and officers drinking whenever they are thirsty, 
which is too often. Luckily, we have a good- 
sized cabin and opposite to it an empty one, which 
we use for trunks and dressing-room, so we are 
fairly comfortable. 

The Thames' passengers are varied: English, 
a few Americans (North Americans, that is, for 
in this part of the world South America takes 



ON THE STEAMSHIP THAMES 43 

precedence over North), Portuguese, Spanish, 
Brazilians, Chilians, and Peruvians. It is a sur- 
prise to me to find that some of these South 
Americans have light brown hair and fair skins, 
and are not at all our accepted idea of the Spanish 
type. A blond, blue-eyed young fellow who 
takes tea with us is from Montevideo, and an- 
other fair young man, whom I thought at first to 
be from the States, lives in Lima, Peru. Two 
sweet Sisters of Charity, whose somber, trailing 
robes seem strangely out of place on the deck of 
the steamship, are going down from Belgium to 
the Argentine. A beauty is always interesting, 
and we have one real beauty to whom my eyes 
often turn, other eyes as well, whose olive, oval 
face, with large brown eyes and mass of dusky 
hair, is of an unaccustomed type. She wears two 
large sparkling diamonds in her pretty little ears 
that are wonderfully becoming. She really is 
ready to frame. Some of the Portuguese men 
with their dark skins and straight jet-black hair 
strongly suggest the Japanese. 

We have had just one glimpse of land. One 
evening at sunset we passed the Canary Islands. 



44 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

On one side we could see villages and farm- 
houses along the lower slopes of the hills that rise 
sharply from the water in picturesque irregular- 
ity; on the other we had a glimpse of just the 
peak of Teneriffe, which lifts its head twelve 
thousand one hundred and eighty feet from the 
sea. The whole of this island was hidden by a 
bank of clouds, and the little peak which peeped 
above it seemed well in cloudland, too. We sailed 
between the peaks and gaunt hills, solemn and 
awesome as those Dore studied, into the night, 
and our next view of land will be in tropical 
Brazil. What a wonderful waste of water lies on 
the globe ! To think that four-fifths of the earth's 
surface is covered by the restless, lonely, mighty 
ocean! What a speck, what an atom each of us 
would be if left to battle with it single-handed! 
Sturdy, independent, courageous Captain Slocum, 
who circled the globe in his little craft, The Spray, 
alone ! 

We had hoped to land at Pernambuco and 
sleep in a real bed again, but the length of time 
we could stay and the one pound ten shillings 
which the robber boatman wanted for taking us 



ON THE STEAMSHIP THAMES 45 

ashore made us give up the plan. We came into 
Pernambuco in the late afternoon, and we stood 
on deck, of course, peering eagerly out for our 
first view of the South American continent. One 
distant shore is very like another, irregular and 
dimly green, but along the ridge of the hills we 
could see with a glass the notched plumy edge 
of tree-tops which we know are the palms that 
belong in the tropics. The weather is not op- 
pressively warm, — quite ideal summer weather 
in fact, with cool fresh breezes. 

Pernambuco, the City of the Reef, is curiously 
protected from the sea by a long, narrow reef of 
rocks about five hundred feet from the shore, mak- 
ing a safe, deep harbor into which large ships can 
go, not as large as the Thames, however. The 
Pernambucans seemed to take our arrival very 
calmly. As we came in late, the doctor, who must 
be the first aboard, was said to be at dinner and, 
being a Portuguese, did not bother himself to 
come out that evening. We consoled ourselves for 
not getting ashore by dancing on the deck, enjoy- 
ing in the intervals the bright stars overhead and 
the brilliant lights of the city that lay along the 



46 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

water's edge. In the morning our hopes again 
rose high for landing, my hopes at least, but only 
a straggling lighter or two came out with a little 
freight, and a few passenger-boats, whose amaz- 
ing tariff nobody was willing to pay. A brown 
boy with many bright-colored, tropical birds came 
on board and made some sales, a few of the trav- 
elers being courageous enough to add a bird-cage 
to their other hand-baggage. One handsome bird 
with rich rose-red feathers tipped with black, a 
glossy jet bill with a single effective white spot on 
either side, caught my fancy, though I felt sorry 
for him in his confinement and thought that the 
poor fellow's gay wings ought to be flashing in 
the sunlight and the free air. 

It was posted that we would sail at nine 
though we did not get off till twelve, an irritat- 
ing characteristic of steamships. It was all very 
dispiriting, but we had to be content with the sea 
view of Pernambuco, so near and yet so far. 
Queer little box-like buildings with red-tiled 
roofs showed up in the business part of the town. 
Well over to the right, as we lay facing the city, 
was the lovely hill-suburb called Olinda, where 



ON THE STEAMSHIP THAMES 47 

the foliage looked beautifully luxuriant and 
green against the reddish soil, and the quaint, 
Spanish-looking convents and churches, which 
cap the hills, looked most interesting. Between 
the city and Olinda was a large white building 
with a tall smoke-stack, which we were told was 
a sugar refinery. Cotton and sugar are the chief 
articles of commerce. 



CHAPTER V 

BEGUILING BAHIA 

From Pernambuco to Bahia the coast' was visi- 
ble most of the time and the cliffs stood out with 
cloud-like whiteness. Indeed they looked more like 
clouds than earth. We passed many funny little 
craft, mere eggshell boats, and a flat catamaran, 
made of several timbers lashed together with an 
odd little three-cornered sail, tilted at an unfa- 
miliar angle that seemed about to blow away. 
No sooner had we anchored at Bahia than a fleet 
of boats, big and little, put out from shore and 
soon were clustered about us, bringing pineapples, 
bananas, the sweet, green-skinned oranges and 
other fruits, and one a collection of green parrots. 
Oh, what a treat it was to go ashore at Bahia! 
One is in danger of being over-enthusiastic in 
telling about the first day on shore after a long 
sea voyage. I am not sure that every one feels 
my keen joy in the fruitful earth. The shore 
48 




A BELLE OF BAHIA 



BEGUILING BAHIA 49 

looked invitingly green and tropical. We round- 
ed a picturesque lighthouse, set in the inclosure 
of an old and weather-worn fort, and turned into 
Bahia's beautiful bay. Bahia, indeed, means 
"bay." The indented, curved shore-line of the 
bay must cover many miles, for the hills of the 
opposite side are far away and misty. The mouth 
of the harbor is lost and we seem to be in a large 
and beautiful inland lake. 

Bahia is a feast of entertainment for the new- 
comer. It is a center of the black population of 
Brazil, having in former times been a thriving 
slave market, and the gregarious blacks still 
gather here in great numbers. Some homesick 
Portuguese from Lisbon must have chosen the 
sight, for Bahia is hung upon a hillside in much 
the same remarkable manner as Lisbon, though 
the buildings are not piled upon one another so 1 
thickly and the green peeps out between, — that 
fresh, healthy resplendent green of warm, moist 
climates. The buildings are painted in many pret- 
ty colors and the effect against the background 
of green is gay and pleasing. In the narrow strip 
of land that runs along the water's edge under 



50 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

the cliff the streets and buildings have been 
squeezed close together with hardly a breathing 
space between. One feels the summer indolence 
that hangs over the place, though the narrow 
streets are crowded with people of many colors. 
The variations of brown complexions are a reve- 
lation. Cunning, fat, little brown babies caper 
around clad in nothing but complexion. The 
most picturesque and attractive figures are the 
handsome, big, graceful negresses who walk 
along with their baskets of wares balanced on 
their heads or sit on the curb-stone offering their 
fruit or knickknacks to passers-by, especially to 
strangers, with a most engaging, beguiling smile 
that creeps into their eyes and shows their rows 
of white teeth to great advantage. They are such 
handsome, well- formed creatures and must be the 
belles of the colored population, for they are well- 
dressed and, among a class where one sees a 
great deal of untidiness and dirt, are clean and 
neat. Their full, colored petticoats and white em- 
broidered or lace-trimmed waists are freshly laun- 
dered and the white kerchiefs they knot about 
their heads are snowy. The negresses wear neck- 



BEGUILING BAHIA 51 

laces and bracelets of bright-colored beads, and 
the white waists are very low-necked and sleeve- 
less, often dropping away from the shapely shoul- 
ders. The young are plump; the older, alas, are 
more than plump. Sitting alone or in little 
groups, or walking in their stately fashion, they 
are always attractive. They move with a peculiar 
rolling gait that clings to them when they have 
no burden, and in many of the old, wrinkled, clean 
mammies who creep along the streets I could see 
an old-time handsome wench. The black men, 
too, are muscular, big fellows with a remarkable 
development of chest and shoulders that they get 
from their work of loading and unloading great 
bundles of tobacco and cocoa. 

Bahia is the second city of Brazil in size, 
though not in commercial importance. The 
blacks fare much better than the other races in 
Bahia, for the climate is enervating and very un- 
healthy for white people. 

At least one handsome, well-built road climbs 
the cliff, supported by walls of solid masonry, a 
fine bit of work. There is also an inclined plane 
that goes up a hair-raising grade, and an ele- 



52 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

vator, which you enter from one of the lower 
streets, lifts you two hundred and eighty feet, 
from which you step thankfully forth to the pub- 
lic square of the upper town. I did not see any 
public carriages in the city, but the tram-cars, 
drawn by two rat-like little mules, take you about 
very comfortably. In one place the mules left us 
and we coasted down a hill by gravity. The busi- 
ness part of the upper town is better than the 
lower, and we found the shops rilled with fancy- 
dress costumes, masks, and confetti ready for the 
approaching carnival before Lent, which is the 
great fete of the year for Brazilians. The houses, 
always painted in many colors, variegate pleas- 
ingly down the street. Some of them, like those 
we saw in Lisbon, have the whole front in tiles, 
blue and white usually, with the ornamental iron 
balconies painted in blue and white to correspond. 
It seems we might copy these, for they are at- 
tractive, though it is possible we could use the tile 
only in the states where there are no great ex- 
tremes of temperature. The balconies are usually 
filled with people gazing curiously down into the 
street. The natives seem to have a great deal of 



BEGUILING BAHIA 53 

leisure and what we call idle curiosity. There are 
many charming little gardens filled with lovely 
flowering vines and shrubs, and many bushes and 
even trees have exquisitely colored foliage. 
There are beautiful Royal Poinciana trees which, 
with their lace-like green foliage and wealth of 
red blossoms like giant azaleas, are correspond- 
ingly decorative. The heavy, green foliage of the 
mango is the dark note in the gamut of lovely 
greens. And high above all on his gray columnar 
stem the royal palm, that aristocrat of the tree 
kingdom, bows and bends his plumed head with 
befitting dignity. 

Our return to the Thames from Bahia was ex- 
citing. We came out to the ship about nine 
o'clock and learned that a little while before one 
Jamaica negro sailor had killed another, had 
stabbed him to the heart, causing instant death. 
They had quarreled over the splicing of some 
rope ! I had watched the two men at work on the 
rope that morning, and it was a shock to hear 
that one of them had been killed. Of course the 
question of arrest and trial came up and officers 
hastened ashore for consuls and other officials, 



54 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

had a preliminary examination in the dining- 
saloon, and, as a result, sent the dead man and the 
murderer ashore. The captain said the murderer 
was one of his best sailors, but that the victim 
was a disagreeable, quarrelsome fellow, so we all 
felt sorry for the living one over the terrible mis- 
take he had made. That was the second tragic 
occurrence of our voyage. Soon after we left 
Lisbon one of the third-class passengers showed 
symptoms of insanity and the first mate caught 
him and locked him in a cabin, intending to go 
back a little later and put a strait- jacket on 
him if necessary. When he did return the door 
was locked but the man was gone. He had man- 
aged to work himself through the port hole, had 
dropped into the water, and was no doubt soon 
drowned. 



CHAPTER VI 

RIO DE JANEIRO 

It was early morning when we ran up on the 
deck of the Thames and found we were fast ap- 
proaching the irregular row upon row of moun- 
tains which run to the right and left of the en- 
trance to the famous Bay of Rio, a bay large 
enough to hold the navies of the world. A soft 
mist hung over the water, making the mountains 
about the harbor dim and indistinct. 

One hesitates for a word for these surround- 
ing highlands of Rio Janeiro (the River of Janu- 
ary). They are hardly high enough to be called 
mountains in the large sense and are of too noble 
height to be called hills. The circumference of 
the bay is about one hundred miles and the en- 
trance only one mile across, making it in appear- 
ance more like an inland lake than a bay, and 
around it in infinite variety, no two peaks rising 
to the same height nor following a range appar- 

55 



56 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

ently, cluster these great wooded hills, with the 
Organ Mountains closing the horizon to the 
north. 

Where shall I begin to tell of the charms of 
Rio de Janeiro and where end ? With all the one 
hundred thousand words of the English language 
at my command, its beauty would still be inde- 
scribable. My photographs can not convey color 
as well as my pen, and any pen needs to be dipped 
in the solar spectrum. Look with me this golden 
afternoon from my airy perch on the piazza of 
our little chalet up behind the Hotel International 
and see with my eyes the fair view that spreads 
itself out far below. The sky is blue as Italy's 
sky, a clear, pure azure against which the white 
clouds stand out with exquisite distinctness. The 
atmosphere is dreamy and a faint haze hangs 
over the distant mountains. The great slopes of 
the hills of Santa Thereza near-by at the left are 
a mass of shaded green with splashes of yellow 
and purple here and there from blossoming trees. 
Over to the right is a great hill with verdure 
swirling about its base like a green wave, the 
summit crowned with vegetation, but against 



RIO DE JANEIRO 57 

whose steep, gaunt, brown sides no living thing 
finds root. Down, down, under us in a cavernous 
valley are little groups of houses that look like 
toys, the trees surrounding them like shrubs, the 
roads like paths. As the valley widens the build- 
ings increase in number, and far below at the end 
we see a bit of Rio that peeps around the hill, 
quaint, charming, red-roofed Rio! Beyond are 
the blue waters of the bay and beyond them in 
misty distance the faint, undulating line of moun- 
tains which everywhere surround Rio and are 
one of its wonders and beauties. In the middle 
distance is a great, precipitous, unscalable rock 
suitably called Sugarloaf from' its shape, and be- 
yond I can see islands and the sparkling waters 
of the ocean. It would seem that everything has 
been given to Rio to make her lovely, these mag- 
nificent ranges of mountains of which the eye 
never tires, the radiant vegetation, and heavenly 
blue sea. I am regretfully certain that I can not 
make it appear as it is. One can not write in 
colors, least of all in tropical colors, and Rio is, 
of all places that I have seen in the world, fullest 
of splendid, rich color. 



58 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

This garden spot of earth has its drawbacks 
which one by one lift their ugly little heads, but it 
remains first and last beautiful, wonderfully beau- 
tiful. Where can you find a finer electric car ride 
in the world than the one which leaves the Largo 
Carioca, down in the heart of the city, and winds 
on and out along the picturesque hills toward 
Santa Thereza, turning, twisting and always 
mounting, giving at each moment new glimpses 
into flowery gardens and woods, and new vistas 
over the city to the bay and off to the mountain 
range? As one rides up, the greater part of 
Rio spreads itself out in bird's-eye view, though 
some of it is always creeping behind the hill, a 
green hill that eludes and slips behind another 
green hill. It is only from the heights of Corco- 
vado, which also can be reached by cog railway, 
that the whole city unrolls and you see what a 
great place it is. Circling round the curving line 
of the bay, rising on the hills and running up the 
hundred valleys, it is a city surpassing all others 
in beauty. 

Most of the foliage is novel and therefore 
more interesting to new-comers from temperate 



RIO DE JANEIRO 59 

climes. Tall clumps of bananas stand out against 
the hillsides, waving their flapping leaves like ban- 
ners ; the feathery bamboo springs up everywhere 
in green clusters; fine mango trees delight one's 
eyes with their rich, glossy foliage; poincianas 
spread their boughs of green ; lofty palms lift their 
heads high above all and low down underneath 
runs a riot of creeping, growing, flowering things 
that make a glimpse of the red soil a rarity. 
Among the wealth of greenery it is a keen pleas- 
ure to spy bits familiar to our northern eyes — 
the scarlet spikes of salvia which grow in wild 
profusion, the crimson canna, the sturdy stalk 
and leaves of the castor bean, the yellow blossom 
of the honeysuckle with its sweet breath. The 
royal palm is perhaps the most interesting of all 
nature's family of trees, and in the rich soil and 
warm moist climate of Brazil it attains even 
greater height than in its native home, often 
towering to a height of one hundred and fifty 
feet, from the ground to its waving fronds. 

Out in the botanical garden I came upon a 
Royal palm quite apart from the splendid and 
famous avenue of palms, with a low wall of stone 



60 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

around it and a tablet which tells the visitor that 
this palm is the father of all those growing in 
Brazil and was planted by Don Joao VI in 1809. 
He brought it from Portugal, I believe, though 
the Royal palm is a native of India. This inter- 
esting patriarch is still fine and flourishing. In- 
deed he looks younger than many of his children 
and grandchildren. 

A number of things are topsy-turvy in this 
southern hemisphere. The moon hangs wrong 
side out in the sky, and though 'tis February, we 
are in the midst of summer. I had to come to 
Brazil, too,, to hear rainy weather called "pleas- 
ant." One rainy day when I was pattering about 
down in the narrow, close streets of the lower 
city, burdened with umbrella, overshoes and all 
the wearing appliances that wet weather de- 
mands, I made a casual remark to a shopkeeper 
about the disagreeable weather. "Disagreeable !" 
he exclaimed; "why, this is fine weather. Look 
what a beautiful day it is, cool and pleasant. We 
haven't had such a fine summer for years, rain 
every day, you might say." It seems that in the 
wet seasons it is much cooler and the yellow fever 



RIO DE JANEIRO 61 

and other contagious diseases are not so viru- 
lent. The dry seasons are dreaded. A paragraph 
from the Rio News on the city's general health 
is not without interest. 

According to the semi-monthly bulletin of the 
board of public health, the number of deaths dur- 
ing the second half of this January was five hun- 
dred and eighty-four in this city of seven hun- 
dred thousand inhabitants, a very low number for 
mid-summer, the cool weather and much rain ac- 
counting for this. The smallpox, which is always 
present in the city, showed an increase during the 
period, the deaths numbering thirty-six against 
eighteen in the first half of the month. From 
other diseases the deaths were: Pulmonary con- 
sumption, one hundred and seven ; malaria, thir- 
ty-nine; yellow fever, seven; beriberi, seven; bu- 
bonic plague, six ; other diseases, seventeen. The 
births numbered five hundred and forty-three and 
the marriages one hundred and two. There have 
been times when the death rate in Rio from yel- 
low fever alone has averaged two hundred per 
day. This beriberi, by the way, is a curious dis- 
ease, somewhat resembling rheumatism, which 



62 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

attacks the legs, making the sufferer totter about 
like a paralytic. If not given prompt and careful 
treatment, the disease is fatal. The best remedy 
is a change of climate. This list of diseases 
sounds ominous, yet I find an American long 
down here who declares that Rio Janeiro is 
healthier than New York, and that the death rate 
is lower. 

It is with the greatest difficulty that I get any 
sort of reliable information about the city or its 
surroundings, though of course I am a bundle of 
questions. In the good-sized book store of the 
Ouvidor, the best business street, so narrow that 
no animal or wheeled vehicle is allowed in it, I 
was amazed to find nothing in the way of books 
of history or information about the country or 
city in either Spanish, French or English, not 
even a guide book ! 

I am told that the Brazilians are quite indiffer- 
ent as to where things came from and how and 
why they were constructed, and the only infor- 
mation extant is with the foreigners. There is an 
amusing discrepancy between the good opinion 
the Brazilians have of themselves and the opinion 



f/-'S 
m 




THE OUYIDOR 



RIO DE JANEIRO 63 

outsiders have of them. True, it is never just to 
the individual to speak of a nation as having cer- 
tain characteristics, for there are always excep- 
tions and notable ones, but foreigners freely ex- 
press the opinion that the Brazilians are quite in- 
capable of developing the resources of their large 
and rich country and the task must eventually be 
given into the hands of Europeans or North 
Americans. The country at present is in a la- 
mentable financial condition, which is attributed 
entirely to misgovernment. Revolutions have fol- 
lowed one another merrily in Brazil, as they do in 
most South American republics, and successive 
sets of political freebooters, with their satellites, 
have made haste to fill their pockets while the sun 
shone, the country's commercial interest mean- 
while suffering demoralization. 

The street people of Rio are not particularly 
picturesque. Perhaps they would be more so to 
one unaccustomed to the black faces of our ne- 
groes. The Brazilians are an unhealthy race, 
undersized and thin even in youth and anemic 
and weazened when they grow old. It is the rarest 
exception to see a white native who looks in per- 



64 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

feet health. The color of the natives runs through 
all the shades from cafe au lait to inky black. 
A curious feature of the situation is that families 
are by no means warranted to be all of the same 
color. One child goes back to one grandfather 
and another to another for his complexion, I sup- 
pose, and the result is that the same fathers 
and mothers have assorted shades of children. 
Did you ever ! Here is a poser for the man who 
does not believe in heredity. 

The black people in Brazil seem to be on a foot- 
ing of equality with the white, going to the same 
hotels, and eating at the same tables in dining- 
rooms and on steamships. 

In the lower city the streets are mere lanes, so 
narrow that carriages can not pass in them; a 
hand, painted on the corner of the buildings, 
shows in which direction a vehicle may go. The 
tram-cars, "bonds' ' as they are called, drawn by 
two or sometimes only one lonesome mule, 
thread their way about, running so close to the 
buildings and leaving such scant space on the 
narrow sidewalk that one must step hastily back 
into the open doors of the shops to let them pass. 



RIO DE JANEIRO 65 

The Brazilians call the street-cars "bonds," be- 
cause, when an English company came down, got 
the right of way and bonded the roads, the street- 
cars mixed themselves with the bonds in the 
primitive native mind and were never untangled. 
The electric lines have been of tremendous ad- 
vantage to Rio, making the heights readily acces- 
sible and taking one easily along the cool, shady, 
winding mountain roads, past the fine houses and 
gardens of the rich and well-to-do, up into the 
cool forest. 

As in the Hawaiian Islands, the Mother Hub- 
bard is the negligee morning costume of the Rio 
woman, or sometimes a skirt and loose sack, then 
late in the afternoon she dresses herself for the 
interesting occupation of looking out the win- 
dow. 

People move so leisurely, so indifferently in 
this dreamy heavy air. The only example of real 
speed that I have seen since landing was an 
ostrich that was being chased by a yellow dog out 
in the botanical garden. F — and I have fallen 
asleep with the rest and have lost all recollection 
of what we did for some days after we came. 



66 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

We have roused ourselves somewhat, but I think 
it will take a nip of Jack Frost really to wake us 
up again. 

In going to Tijuca one passes many hand- 
some, suburban homes, always set in the same 
flowery gardens with the usual groups of soar- 
ing palms, their tall gray columns lifted high 
before putting forth their tufts of plumy leaves. 
The style of these villas might make an architect 
squeal, for their multiform decoration is of the 
wedding-cake variety, but they are not unpleas- 
ing in their setting of green, for they are neat, 
home-like and inviting, and the lovely gardens re- 
deem them. They are always attractively painted, 
too, in harmonious combinations of the soft tints 
that we call pastel. This quiet taste in colors is 
noticeable in the city streets as well, where the 
stucco buildings are all painted in many mellow 
tints. Many of these country places are literally 
hung on the hillsides with massive stone retain- 
ing walls to keep them in place. This bird-like 
dexterity in building out into the atmosphere 
must come to them honestly from their Portu- 
guese ancestors, for it is Lisbon over again. The 



i 




RIO DE JANEIRO 67 

whole of the attractiveness of Rio might be 
summed up in two words, view and verdure. 

It is damp and muggy in our little chalet to- 
day and everything feels wet and sticky, really is 
wet and sticky, and we are wishing for sunshine 
to dry us out and keep us from molding. This 
paper even is wet and my pen almost refuses to 
slip, on it. I don't believe the ink ever dries here. 
It is a blessing for which I am not sufficiently 
grateful to have hair that is not of the kind to 
straighten out to strings in this moist air. But 
our airy perch is a thousand times better than the 
city, and we came up here for comfort and for 
health's sake as well. Poor F — and I entertained 
ourselves on our half-hour ride up the mountain 
last evening, thinking of a dinner we would like 
to eat with, the home folks, our mouths fairly 
watering as we named over the good things. At 
the time we knew we were coming toward a poor 
dinner here at the International. F — says he pays 
these people five dollars a day each to get some- 
thing good to eat and all the time his stomach 
goes flip-flap and cries out for food. Nothing is 
really good and appetizing, not even the fruit. 



68 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

We are again spending money at a reckless rate. 
Eleven thousand reis for a dinner! It sounds 
calamitous and looks even worse, for they write 
it 1 1 $000. A bottle of beer costs 2$ooo and a 
bottle of champagne 30$ooo. We are neither of 
us much in love with Rio, even though it has such 
transcendent beauty. The air is miserably heavy 
and enervating', making one feel lifeless. 

We are soon going to Petropolis, the Simla of 
Brazil, where it rains every day, but where the 
weather is really cool. Petropolis is in the moun- 
tains back of Rio amid fine scenery reached by 
steam-cars and by steep inclines through jungles 
and over deep ravines, along huge walls of stone 
ready to fall upon you from above. There is a 
handsome house for the American legation at 
Petropolis and a flourishing Methodist school for 
girls. After that we go to San Paulo, the largest 
city of Brazil away from the coast. F — goes 
there on business and we shall both enjoy the 
glimpse of the country inland. We have met a Mr. 
Cooper here at the International, an American 
who is superintending the construction of an im- 
mense electric power plant at San Paulo, one of 



RIO DE JANEIRO 69 

the largest in the world; also an interesting Mr. 
MacKenzie, who amused us one day by saying that 
he had pored and prayed and perspired over this 
Portuguese language and still couldn't put three 
words together. He says he does not think these 
Portuguese could understand one another in the 
dark. We think of South America as a Spanish 
continent, but it really might be called Portu- 
guese, the one hundred and eighty million peo- 
ple in Brazil speaking the Portuguese language. 

The prices of things in Rio are hair-raising, 
the shop things I mean. They asked me one dollar 
and fifty cents a yard for some mosquito netting 
such as you pay forty cents for in Paris, one dol- 
lar and fifty cents in gold! I didn't invest, but 
unearthed a net for our bed at the hotel. 

A million ants are crawling over the table as 
I write, but there is a greater freedom here from 
insects than I had expected. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE GREAT POWER PLANT AT PARNAHYBA 

Usually I do not consider food of the first im- 
portance in life, but in traveling it gets to be a 
serious matter when day after day you can have 
nothing that is palatable or wholesome. The 
meats in this country are poor, the vegetables 
few and unappetizing, the fruits insipid, really 
the worst food I have ever known. Fortunately 
we keep well and I should not speak of the short- 
comings of Brazilian hotels when writing from 
San Paulo and the Grand Hotel de la Rotissiere 
( Sportsman) , where we now are, for this is the 
best we have found thus far. The rooms are not 
so barn-like ; they seem to have been swept some 
time; the management has more system and the 
table is quite fair. We were half-starved when 
we came here to San Paulo, and now we wish 
we could carry this hotel around with us, at least 
while we are in Brazil. Of course we have fallen 

70 




CORCOVADO RAILWAY 



POWER PLANT AT PARNAHYBA 71 

into the eastern way of late breakfasts, so have 
coffee and rolls in bed, the real breakfast at 
eleven, tea at four and dinner at seven o'clock. 
I must admit that I don't like the hours for meals, 
unless it be the one in bed. We have been revel- 
ing in other good things that have come our way 
in San Paulo. Our new friends have been very 
kind and we have dined twice with Mr. MacKen- 
zie, whom we met at the International, a Cana- 
dian who is the lawyer for the San Paulo Tram- 
way Light and Hydraulic Power Company. He 
keeps house with three Americans, who are at the 
heads of the different departments of the work. 
Their womanless establishment was quite a curi- 
osity to me. Poor fellows, they get along pretty 
well after a fashion, but it's hard lines that they 
have no one to look after the domestic side of life 
for them. 

The finest of all the fine days we have had 
down here was the day we went to Parnahyba to 
see Mr. Cooper's dam, one of the big ones of the 
world, which dams the Tiete River and is to give 
San Paulo all the electric power it needs. At Mr. 
Cooper's urgent invitation we had come by rail, 



72 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA ' 

after the usual fuss with fumigation, to the city 
of San Paulo. 

San Paulo, by the way, is a flourishing city of 
some two hundred and fifty thousand people, 
three hundred and ten miles from Rio de Janeiro, 
southwest, built upon a broad plane with low hills 
about it. The houses are low and unpretentious, 
though there are some pretty country houses be- 
longing to wealthy coffee planters reached by the 
now universal tramway. Four lines of steam rail- 
ways run out to the great coffee districts of the 
interior, San Paulo being the center of the coffee 
trade. You know Brazil grows two-thirds of the 
coffee of the world and we coffee topers of the 
United States take one-half of this exportation. 
Coffee has been grown in Brazil only for the past 
one hundred and fifty years, and requires a cer- 
tain altitude and certain conditions even here. It 
must have heat and dampness and be neither too 
near nor too far from the sea-shore, and at an 
elevation of from one to four thousand feet. With 
these favorable conditions there will be two or 
three gatherings a year from the plantations. 
Many think San Paulo will some day be the me- 




BOTANICAL GARDEN, RIO JANEIRO 



THE POWER PLANT AT PARNAHYBA 73 

tropolis of Brazil, and it is now a clean, healthy, 
attractive city with wide streets and the air and 
bustle of a northern place. It is the capital of its 
richest state and received sixty million dollars of 
good American gold last year for its coffee. Rio 
Janeiro is sleepy and dead compared with it. 

Mr. Cooper, the engineer of the great dam at 
Parnahyba, twenty-five miles in air-line from 
San Paulo, is a clever, self-made, capable Ameri- 
can, with much of the salt of youth. about him, 
a man of intelligence and power, and he also 
proved himself to be a delightful host, making 
every possible arrangement for our pleasure. At 
half after five Tuesday morning Mr. Cooper's 
man met us at the door of the hotel in San Paulo 
with a carriage, took us to the station, handed 
out two return tickets, put us on the train and 
said, "The second stop is Barnery, where the 
company's 'trolley' will meet you." One hour and 
ten minutes later the little narrow-gage train 
came to the second stop ; a fierce-looking Italian 
with a huge whip around his neck thrust his head 
in through the car window and, catching sight 
of us, beckoned us to come out, saying, "Trol- 



74 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

ley." He looked so dangerous that it was a ques- 
tion whether to remain on the train and be car- 
ried into the interior of Brazil, or trust ourselves 
to this wild, murderous-looking man. F — says 
he would have been on that train yet if I hadn't 
jumped up and run out to see what the "trolley" 
looked like. It proved to be like the American 
buckboard, but very much stronger, with a seat 
in front hung high, so the forward wheels would 
pass under the body, a good vehicle for the rough 
roads of Brazil. 

The first thing Mr. Cooper did was to build 
this road of seven miles to the village of Parna- 
hyba, which was accomplished in thirty-seven 
days. It winds along the face of the hills, with 
flowering trees and interesting plants and ferns 
on all sides. We drove over it early in the morn- 
ing while it was cool, and every green thing 
sparkled with rain-drops left by the shower of a 
few moments before our arrival. There were 
many wild flowers, morning-glories, the delicate 
mimosa, and others. Mr. Cooper came down the 
road to meet us, and as he rode at our side, point- 
ed out the dam and the changes in his quick, ener- 



THE POWER PLANT AT PARNAHYBA 75 

getic way. I thought he looked the part of a 
leader and understood how he had accomplished 
such wonders in this far-off land, with Brazilian, 
negro, Indian and Italian workmen, a mixture 
not easy to handle. His speech was smooth, but 
his manner convincing, and when that broad jaw 
closed it was evident his word was law and every 
man under him knew it. 

One day a big Italian came at one of the fore- 
men with a large club and a threatening manner. 
The fellow said he was going to kill the foreman, 
and it looked as though he was going to carry out 
his threat. The foreman stepped into his office, 
got a pistol, and, as the man attempted to strike, 
shot him in the leg and he dropped in his tracks ; 
then the whole crowd of men, six or seven hun- 
dred, started for Mr. Cooper. He was in his of- 
fice and saw them coming. He jumped up, 
caught the American flag, and without any other 
means of defense ran with it right into their 
midst and in five minutes had quieted the trouble. 
I must mention that Mr. Cooper's salary is fifteen 
thousand dollars a year and expenses, and I am 
sure he earns every cent of it. 



76 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

Mr. Cooper accompanied us to the house, 
which is large and airy, gave us his own room, 
left a pitcher of ice water and said, "Breakfast in 
ten minutes." We had been up nearly four hours 
without breakfast and we had an appetite to grat- 
ify any cook. Fruit, steak, bacon, eggs and 
chicken, and then came griddle cakes. F — had 
finished twelve and was going to quit, when I 
suggested he make it thirteen and let it go at 
that. Most of the table things are from the 
States, and as his staff are all Americans, he tries 
to give them an American table. He buys con- 
densed milk and cream made by Hylands, of 
Elgin, Illinois. At dinner we had ice-cream made 
from this, and it seemed to me the finest I ever 
tasted. It was served in soup-plates, and F — sent 
back for a second pint. The house is built on a 
hill, commanding a fine view of the valley, at the 
bottom of which rushes the swift Tiete, though 
before the clearing was commenced not a thing 
was to be seen from this point but jungle. The 
dam is eight hundred and sixty feet long; from 
the top to the footing stone is seventy-two feet; 
the spillway is about six hundred feet long and 



THE POWER PLANT AT PARNAHYBA 77 

built in the shape of an ogee. What a grand 
sight it will be to see this long sheet of water 
forming the graceful curves and then tumbling 
into white foam on the rocks below ! Fine granite 
for the dam is taken from quarries only a little 
distance away. Mr. Cooper was thoughtful 
enough to have the man hold a blast for us, so 
when we came along I touched the button and a 
handful of black powder lifted huge blocks of 
stones the size of a small house and tossed them 
about with volcanic effect. 

The San Paulo Tramway Light and Power 
Company is a Canadian and American concern 
that is investing eight million dollars in a water 
power and electric station to furnish the city with 
electric street-cars, electric lights and electric 
power generally. It is one of the largest projects 
of the kind in the world. Some three years ago 
Mr. Pierson, of the Metropolitan Company of 
New York City, went down with Mr. Cooper to 
investigate the proposition. The Tiete River was 
to be dammed and turbines installed to furnish 
power for the electric generators, and then cop- 
per cables to transmit it to San Paulo, twenty- 



78 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

five miles away. Mr. Cooper could do the hy- 
draulic and Mr. Pierson the electric work. When 
they arrived on the ground they found the banks 
of the river one tangled mass of tropical jungle. 
Mr. Cooper told us he had to climb trees to make 
his observations and cut paths down to the water 
to learn the contour of the banks. There were 
rapids too swift to navigate and, in the prelimi- 
nary survey he had to judge the volume of water 
and fall by the roar and fuss it made. Mr. 
Cooper made his estimates and handed them to 
Mr. Pierson ; they were standing in a dense jun- 
gle, where it was impossible to swing a war club. 
Mr. Pierson examined them for a few minutes, 
then pointing over toward the roar of waters 
where the angry torrents were grinding up huge 
boulders, said : "Mr. Cooper, your scheme is ex- 
cellent, you must take charge of the job; go to 
New York, design the dam, buy all the necessary 
machinery and return and put it up !" Thus was 
born twenty-five thousand hydraulic horse power, 
the third largest in the world. The dam is a fine 
stone affair and the water used to supply the 
power is carried down to the power-house in a 




THE GREAT PIPE AT PARNAHYBA 



THE POWER PLANT AT PARNAHYBA 79 

huge steel pipe twelve feet in diameter and two 
thousand eight hundred feet long. Each section 
of pipe, about three feet long, will weigh, when 
full of water, ninety thousand pounds. I forget 
how many thousands, rather hundreds of thou- 
sands, of rivets they have put into this monster, 
now nearing completion. It's the longest pipe of 
its size in the world. 

You see one must deal with large figures down 
here at the south end of Brazil. So Mr. Cooper 
went back to New York and the drafting-board, 
and with fifteen assistants and a lot of mid- 
night oil, he planned the whole thing, from 
the huge pipes to his Wisconsin pancake flour. 
He bought a million dollars' worth of machinery, 
collected his staff, most of whom had been with 
him before, and with Mr. MacKenzie sailed away 
for three years of hard work. Mr. MacKenzie 
went down to start the legal matters and to re- 
main two months. He has been there twenty- 
two, and says, "The Lord only knows when I'll 
see home." Poor fellow, he looks white and worn 
and tired, for he has had a hard fight to keep 
those sharks from tearing to pieces and appropri- 



8o ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

ating to themselves the eight million dollars he is 
investing for his clients. The company rents a 
fine house in San Paulo, which is at the disposal 
of all the officials. 

We went all around looking at every detail of 
the work and enjoying it. There is a cable swung 
high above the dam to carry out stone and con- 
crete. We had a ride across the river on it, dang- 
ling like flies, way, way up in the air. Three of 
us rode in a rough box swung by chains, and I 
for the first time appreciated the iron nerve it 
took to walk across Niagara on a rope. How 
did Blondin ever do it ? I was not at all alarmed, 
though Mr. Cooper had told me before we 
started that the car had upset once, throwing 
five men into the water below, drowning two of 
them ! It was a mistake of the engineer's and not 
likely to be repeated, I should say. Poor en- 
gineer! How distressed he must have been over 
the affair ! Mr. Cooper's own brother was one of 
those who went down, but fortunately was saved. 
It happened in the evening late, and they were 
not able to pick the men up till morning. They 
clung to some trees and rocks all night. I can not 




THE DROP TO SANTOS 



THE POWER PLANT AT PARNAHYBA 81 

say I was as tranquil as a drawing-room cat or 
that I quite enjoyed the spin across and back, but 
it gave us fine views up and down the river. 

In the afternoon we rode over to the village on 
horseback. It's many a day since I have been on a 
horse, but I managed to stick on, and after a few 
minutes of getting used to it, I really liked it 
again. The village has an expensive Catholic 
church in it built by the workmen. They are 
nearly all Italians, the Brazilians being good-for- 
nothing when it comes to manual labor. One of 
the saints in the church is black as the ace of 
spades ! Under the altar they have a figure of the 
dead Christ in a coffin, the most gruesome thing I 
have ever seen in a church. Many of the people 
of the village show plainly their Indian blood. To- 
day I poked around in an old curiosity shop here 
kept by a French Jew, I think. He had some in- 
teresting things among the usual claptrap, and I 
felt tempted to buy some old Brazilian ear-rings 
of him, a lot of little indifferent diamonds set in 
a curious design, one of the diamonds green. 
They sometimes find a green diamond of fine 
color in Brazil which is very valuable. Brazil was 



82 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

once a great diamond market, and many small 
diamonds were found, but now the African fields 
have taken away the trade from Brazil. There 
are some other gems in the country, topaz, ame- 
thyst and small emeralds. 

My ukulele has been giving a great deal of 
pleasure here to those who have not heard home 
songs for a long time. Mr. Cooper and his men 
seem delighted with my ditties, and one lovely 
moonlight night all sat out on the porch while I 
sang, accompanied by its sweet strings. My at- 
tentive audience and the beautiful moon were in- 
spiring. 

We had a perfect day for the forty-mile ride 
by the English railway from San Paulo to San- 
tos, which is the shipping port of San Paulo for 
its coffee, sugar, tapioca and other exports, but 
though San Paulo is only such a short distance 
away it lies high on a tableland two thousand 
eight hundred feet above the level of Santos and 
the sea. To get down you must cross the Serra 
do Mar and drop down the mountain sides. This 
is done by an inclined-plane railway in four sec- 
tions, a fine piece of English engineering with 



THE POWER PLANT AT PARNAHYBA 83 

wonderful provision in the way of masonry up 
and down the mountain-side to take care of the 
torrential rainfalls that they often have. The cable 
is fastened around the car and another car com- 
ing down acts as a balance to the one coming up. 
The cable slips along in wheels very smoothly. 

Through Mr. Cooper's kind thoughtfulness 
there was a bench placed for us out on the front 
platform, so nothing obstructed the view. "It al- 
ways rains on the Serra," somebody had said, 
"and when it doesn't rain it's foggy." This pessi- 
mistic remark was not encouraging, so you can 
imagine how pleased we were to have a beautiful 
clear morning that gave us a magnificent view 
down the great green valleys and over the range 
of mountains. All the interior of Brazil that 
we have seen has been hilly, gently rolling like an 
ocean of verdure, the green always bright and 
fresh. Creeping things run riot, while orchids, 
those lovely freaks of the flower kingdom, with 
all sorts of parasites, hang thick upon the trees. 
The soil is everywhere a beautiful rose-red, 
which stands out vividly against the green. Per- 
haps the time is nearing when all this land will be 



84 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

tilled, as it is in many states of North America. 

On our way to Santos, as we were slowly slid- 
ing up and down those slanting tracks which, for 
the first time, at least, are a little awesome, I re- 
marked : "Well, I am always glad to be in Eng- 
lish hands, for I feel safe in them. They are a lit- 
tle slow in England, perhaps, but sure." And F — 
replied : "Well, I'd rather go a little faster and 
lose my life occasionally." I laughed till I nearly 
fell off my bench into space. 

We were fortunate in meeting on the way to 
Santos a Mr. Bueno, a wealthy coffee merchant, 
who was educated in the States at Tufts College. 
By the way, the train which left San Paulo at 
seven twenty a. m. was full of business men who 
have their homes in San Paulo and go all the 
way to Santos every day to look after business. 
Mr. Bueno was very kind and asked us around to 
have a cup of Brazilian coffee with him, made 
just as it should be. It was very fine, too, clear 
and of a good flavor, the best we have had in 
Brazil. There is a wicked Brazilian proverb 
which says that good coffee should be as strong 
as the devil, as black as ink, as hot as hell, and 



THE POWER PLANT AT PARNAHYBA 85 

as sweet as love. They brown coffee very differ- 
ently from our method, however, roasting it until 
it is almost black, though not burned, and then 
powdering it. This gives it a peculiar flavor which 
I do not like as well as ours. Mr. Bueno gave us 
a box of roasted coffee and a box of the pow- 
dered, which we'll try in America. I examined 
the coffee-pot to see how they make it, and was 
much surprised. They must use three or four 
times as much coffee as we do to a cup, so their 
method would not appeal to the frugal house- 
wife. The powdered coffee is put in the top of 
a double boiler, the bottom part of this top being 
perforated, of course. The water is then put un- 
derneath and allowed to boil until the coffee is 
made. It rises in steam and filters back, bringing 
the coffee flavor with it, no water being poured 
through the coffee. 

Great vessels were at the wharf in Santos re- 
ceiving their loads of coffee, the huge bags lifted 
and carried by the stalwart blacks as easily as 
bags of sawdust. The houses in Santos, in true 
Brazilian style, were in all the prismatic colors of 
the rainbow. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC 

At last we have shaken the dust, or mud, of 
Brazil off our shoes, and because of it are the two 
happiest souls afloat on the Atlantic. The moist 
heat, rains, the mosquitoes, fleas and poor hotels 
will try the most philosophical temperaments, 
and ours have been tested from the very first day. 
At the end of three weeks we were ready to go 
and never, never return. I must not say that, for 
it would mean no more of San Paulo, and that 
would be a pity. The recollection of our visit 
there is one of the pleasantest that hangs on mem- 
ory's walls, and will be for many years. We shall 
wish to return there, but leave out the rest of 
Brazil. Oh, how glad we were to see Rio for 
the first time ! How we have enjoyed its beauty, 
and how glad we were to get away from it ! 

We are lazily slipping along in the southern 
Atlantic again towards Montevideo, on board the 

86 




UNFINISHED CATHEDRAL AT LA PLAT, 



THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC 87 

Magdalena, a ship so like the Thames that the 
old groove in my brain still responds and I'm 
always walking into the wrong cabin, thinking it 
the one I had coming down to Rio. The ship 
is cleaner and more attractive, the passengers 
likable, though in so short a time we shall not get 
to know them well. I have had some chats with 
a missionary of the Southern Methodist Church 
stationed at Rosario, a sweet-faced woman who 
has interested me in her work in her girls' school. 
She says she has a mixture of nationalities, al- 
most all of Europe being represented, as well as 
the Argentinos and Creoles. I have been wish- 
ing for an opportunity to look up "Creole" in the 
Century Dictionary, for, although I have looked 
it up half a dozen times in the past, its exact 
meaning always slips from me. Down here they 
call a person with European father or mother, 
grandfather or grandmother, who is born in 
South America, a Creole. The girls who come 
to the school, the missionary says, seem quite as 
bright as the ordinary child with us, and will 
learn history, geography, grammar, anything 
which requires memory, page after page; but 



88 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

arithmetic or any study which calls for reasoning 
is almost beyond them. She has a great many 
Italian girls of the better class, Italians having 
thronged to the countries on The Plate, as they 
say down here, meaning the countries that border 
La Plata River — Uruguay, Paraguay and the 
Argentine, as well as Brazil. One of our passen- 
gers is a retired lieutenant-colonel of the English 
army, tall, slim and soldierly, with a kind, hand- 
some face. His steamer coats are done in the 
most remarkable black and white checks that I 
have ever seen. We find that he intends making 
the same journey that we do across the Andes 
and up the west coast to North America, only he 
has been urging us to go up through some Cen- 
tral American or Mexican port to the City of 
Mexico and on to the States. The colonel is un- 
married, and is traveling all over the world for 
pleasure. 

I am promising myself a grand overhauling of 
my effects at Buenos Aires, things having been 
so mixed up by repeated fumigations. How one 
hates to see or touch his woolens in this hot 
region! Passengers from Rio for anywhere by 









MUSEUM OF LA P 



THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC 89 

rail or sea are watched for all sorts of objection- 
able diseases, sometimes quarantined, and their 
baggage always taken away and fumigated for 
hours. We have had no exceptionally unfortu- 
nate results from this process of fumigation, ex- 
cept the wear and tear of spirit and that every- 
thing comes out of our trunks and bags sadly 
wrinkled. Once at Petropolis they broke a bottle 
in my hand satchel, making a horrid mess of 
veils, gloves, precious neck ribbons and all my 
best feminine frippery. 

We had an extra fine dinner last evening and, 
if we should not go to Lima and so fail to have 
a ride over that wonderful Lima and Oroya rail- 
way, I can be consoled, for I went over it all and 
more in my dreams last night, crossing the lofti- 
est bridges, whizzing around the most startling 
curves, mounting the steepest grades I have ever 
seen ; all my friends ought to have taken this re- 
markable journey with me. F — , after the same 
dinner, eloped with me (at this late day!), drag- 
ging me back and forth up a great mountain- 
side, with my irate father leaping from crag to 
crag in hot pursuit. After such adventures and 



po ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

flights, it is hard to come back to the morning 
and the time we arrived off Montevideo, where 
we were apparently as much at sea as ever, only 
the water was of a muddy yellow color, indicat- 
ing that it was fresh. We were in the broad 
mouth of La Plata River, but couldn't see land 
on either side. Montevideo means "I see the 
mountain," but not a mountain was in sight. 
The River Plate they call it down here (such an 
ugly name for the Silver River), and they speak 
of going down to the Plate or coming up from 
the Plate, meaning any part along La Plata River. 
After a while we came up to Flores Island, the 
quarantine station, where they took off the 
Montevideo passengers, while we steamed on till 
we were alongside the city. 

Though some distance away, the city looked 
inviting, and we longed to land, but were not 
allowed to. We had simply dragged down from 
Rio de Janeiro, because they will not have pas- 
sengers from there landed in the Argentine under 
five days, and it was no use to arrive any sooner. 
A stiff, cold breeze was blowing and the lighters 
that came out tossed about frightfully as they 



THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC gi 

unloaded the Montevideo freight, coffee and 
sugar principally. Late that evening we steamed 
away, and next morning at daybreak we were 
ready to enter the canal which leads up to the 
city of La Plata, the capital of the Argentine 
Republic. We were up, packed and ready to 
leave the ship with our hats on at seven o'clock 
in the morning, and we never landed till four in 
the afternoon! Only imagine how fidgety it 
made us to be moored alongside the dock all that 
time and not be allowed to set foot on it. The 
quarantine is really a serious affair down here. 
A steamer of the French line had been near us 
all the way down, first ahead and then behind, 
and we were all very much elated when by a 
clever move our pilot beat her into the canal, 
where the rule is, first come first served. 

The fine docks along the Ensenada Canal were 
nearly empty and the immense warehouses had 
only a handful of merchandise in them, for La 
Plata, you know, is a deserted city, one of the 
most gigantic failures in history. Some one con- 
ceived the idea of building this new city forty 
miles below Buenos Aires as a new capital of the 



92' ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA-, 

Argentine Republic. It was laid out on a grand 
scale, with boulevards, plazas and a large park, 
and millions of dollars put into it : the port alone 
was to cost fifteen millions, but it did not succeed. 
Its collapse caused the great failure of Baring 
Brothers, the London bankers, as you probably 
will recall. The public buildings were on a grand 
scale, a government palace, a palace of justice, 
a museum, library, national bank, observatory, 
and so on, with handsome residences, too. At 
one time it had a population of forty thousand. 
At present it is abandoned, desolate, the shops 
deserted, the houses empty, a burst bubble, a 
melancholy spectacle. There is a fine opera 
house there which was never opened, and you can 
rent a palatial house on a grass-grown street for 
ten dollars a year. The electric lighting of La 
Plata was to be a wonder — night turned into 
day. Only the museum is occupied now, and 
that with fossils, a noteworthy collection of skel- 
etons of extinct monsters found everywhere be- 
neath the surface of the great pampas — the 
megatherium, the giant armadillo, huge elephants 
and other creatures horrible for size. 




ARGENTINE MILKMAIDS 



THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC 93 

The government requires all its officials to have 
a residence in La Plata, and in consequence they 
rent houses down there and never occupy them, 
but give them into the hands of a care-taker, 
going back and forth from Buenos Aires them- 
selves when necessary. 

As we rode up by rail that March day from 
the Silver River to the city of Good Airs, the 
country reminded me in many ways of Illinois 
and other western prairie states. It was level, 
there were wide stretches of pasture, and we saw 
many ripened fields of corn; March there cor- 
responds to our September. At one time this 
whole pampas, two thousand miles in length and 
five hundred in width, had no trees upon it ex- 
cept here and there a low ombu, good only for 
shade. But now, as in our west, clumps and 
groves of trees here and there mark the estancias, 
or farms. Like our prairies, it requires but the 
turning of the soil to make it ready to till. There 
were horses and colts innumerable in the pas- 
tures, but I did not see many cattle. The country 
everywhere, in contrast to the city, is called "the 
camp," from the Spanish el Campo, so going 



94 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

into the country is always going into the camp. 
While the herding of cattle and horses is a great 
industry, the wheat crop is also a large and in- 
creasing one. 

Buenos Aires is a fine city, the largest Spanish- 
speaking city in South America, and remarkable 
in more ways than one, when you think of its 
being away down here in the southern hemisphere 
where nearly everything must be brought by sea. 
The city is laid out in squares, the houses of the 
usual Spanish stucco type, and most of the streets 
are quite narrow. The tramways take up so 
much room in the narrow streets that the drivers 
toot a tune as they come to each corner to warn 
other drivers of their approach. In the Avenida 
Mayo, the best street, the French style of build- 
ings of uniform height, the rows of trees, the cafes 
with their sidewalk tables, the handsome shops 
and those little islands of refuge that save your 
life when crossing the crowded streets, all strongly 
suggest the boulevards of Paris. The Florida is 
the fashionable shopping street, a small Rue de la 
Paix, and the handsome Argentine women are 
evidently good patrons of the lovely high-priced 




A FARMER OF THE ARGENTINE 



THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC 95 

things in the shops. Nothing seems to be low- 
priced in this country except the horses. You 
can buy some sort of a steed for two dollars and 
a half, and a fairly good riding horse for eight 
dollars. There are really "beggars on horseback" 
in the Argentine. Polite, courteous beggars, too. 
Carriage-riding can also be done in Buenos Aires 
at delightfully low prices, and the city is full of 
vehicles of every description. On Sunday every 
one drives to Palermo, the fashionable park of 
the city. There are miles and miles of well-paved 
streets, asphalt and block, of the native iron- 
wood, that have all been made in the last six or 
seven years and are still in perfect condition. 
There is a wonder of a railway station with 
marble entrance hall, and a beautiful water-works 
building with outer walls encased in Doulton tile, 
built, of course, in the boom period. There is 
an interesting Paraguayan lace in the shops here, 
netted of filmy thread and very expensive. It is 
said to be manufactured mostly by the nuns in 
convents, and I remember seeing an exhibit of it 
at the Chicago Exposition. 

We have had some interesting callers, there 



96 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

being- many North Americans in Buenos Aires; 
one, Mrs. E — , is at the head of a training school 
for kindergarten teachers, and was a pioneer in 
the work down here. The kindergarten schools 
in all the Argentine are free, which is a step 
ahead of some parts of our own country. Political 
intrigues here, however, constantly bring unex- 
pected difficulties to the schools.- Mrs. E — is a 
lovely woman, and has been most kind, inviting 
us to her house, to her kindergarten, and again to 
a tea, where we met a number of Americans who 
have interests in this city, two Indiana brothers 
owning the leading dry goods house. # 

The housekeepers all around may be interested 
to know that I have very much enjoyed a simple 
addition to scrambled eggs that they serve here : 
little cubes of buttered toast stirred right in with 
the eggs ; you chew up the crisp little lumps with 
much the same pleasure that you do hickory-nut 
kernels in a cake ; each one is a find. I must tell 
you, too, something about the yerba mate, the 
national drink of South America, for I have al- 
ready grown very fond of it, and the after effect 
seems harmless. The yerba is a low-growing 



THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC 97 

bush, and the mate is made from its dried leaves 
and twigs, a discovery of the Jesuit missionaries, 
it is said. In serving it there is just one small 
gourd or silver cup used for a whole family 
group, successive fillings with hot water only im- 
proving the flavor, the decoction being sipped 
slowly through a long tube called a bombilla, 
having a bulbous end with holes in it. After the 
boiling water is first poured on the powdered 
yerba, the cup is passed to the most important 
person present or to the honored guest ; then after 
a sip it goes on from one to another, the gourd 
being filled up with boiling water as required, 
and sometimes another pinch of fresh yerba 
added. So it goes on its round again and again, 
no one ever expecting to get his fill at any one 
time. The taste is not unpleasant even at first; 
something between licorice, cocoa, and Garfield 
tea, and I can't help thinking they get the ma- 
terial for the latter down here, yerba being very 
cheap. 

The G — s also called and took me to a wed- 
ding at the American church, which I quite en- 
joyed, for my heart still beats a little faster to 



98 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

the strains of the wedding march. With them 
we also heard Bishop McCabe lecture on "The 
Bright Side of Life in Libby Prison," and, with 
the large audience present, were quite captivated 
by the Bishop's witty discourse. F — says that 
this country needs some good North American 
banks, but, bless my soul, how I would dread, 
for any financial gains whatever, to expatriate 
myself and live in one of these far-away lands. 

The weather here is perfect, just like some of 
our beautiful October days; the hotel, too, is 
good, with fine large rooms about a hundred 
times as big as a ship's cabin. We are thoroughly 
relishing the delicious Argentine grapes, sweet 
and juicy as any from California, and now at 
their best. 

To-morrow we start on the long-talked-of trip 
across the Andes. We call this departure start- 
ing for home. Hooray ! From the time we left 
Lisbon we have been asking how long it took to 
make the journey across and have received no 
two answers alike, the length of time varying 
from two weeks to five days. Now we learn 
from official source that it can be done in three 



THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC 99 

days. This is the last continent F — has to visit 
in the interests of his business. This completes 
the chain, so we are going away with light hearts. 
I wish I could say the same of our baggage ; just 
the extra weight to Valparaiso costs thirty gold 
dollars. It might be worse, however, and you 
can't expect a company to carry weighty baggage 
by such a difficult route without paying well for 
it. Our tickets were a hundred and twenty-five 
dollars each, in paper worth forty-two cents to 
the dollar. We have been wondering all along 
what the cost of this unusual journey would be, 
and are pleased to find that it is no greater. We 
have given ourselves into the hands of the Villa 
Longa Express Company, the Cooks of the Ar- 
gentine, which sells us a through ticket and sees 
that we arrive in safety with our baggage in good 
order. It's a very satisfactory way for us, since 
we know nothing of the country and its customs. 
As I said, it only takes three days now from 
ocean to ocean, by railway, coach and mule-back, 
and we expect to arrive in Valparaiso on Friday. 
Good Friday it is, and I suppose the rest of the 
week will be a holiday. We may run back on the 



ioo ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

spur of railway to Santiago for a visit of a* day 
or two. Our English colonel has gone up the 
Parana to Asuncion and will not be back till the 
seventh, so we leave him behind here, expecting 
him to catch up with us in Chili. We are both 
tanned brown and expect to be browner before we 
reach the Pacific coast. Hasta la Vista. 




REFUGE HOUSE IN THE ANDES 



CHAPTER IX 

ACROSS THE ANDES 

What a blessing- the cable is ! You must have 
the news this evening- that we are alive and on 
the Pacific side of the Andes, while F — , too, has 
had word from home that business is good. We 
have had a glorious but nerve-and-muscle-rack- 
ing experience in crossing the Andes, and right 
glad we are to have come through without mis- 
hap and be landed safe among the belligerent 
Chilians, here at Valparaiso. Our party kept 
dwindling and dwindling, even strong men feel- 
ing the need of stopping for rest, so that toward 
the last there were but seven of us, and I the 
only woman. We shall stay in Valparaiso for a 
three days' rest. By that time all weariness will 
have passed and we'll be gay as larks again, re- 
membering only the glory and grandeur of the 
Andes. The weather could not have been better, 
clear moonlit skies at night and cloudless skies 

IOI 



102 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

by day, so we came over with a maximum of en- 
joyment and a minimum of discomfort. And 
now we want to tell you of the trip, and you will 
be obliged to listen; or shall we have to hire lis- 
teners, as the traveled young man did in Stock- 
ton's amusing House of Martha? 

The long shed of the Retiro station at Buenos 
Aires is a busy place from nine thirty until ten 
the evening that the through Pacific train leaves 
for Mendoza, at the foot of the mountains. This 
train runs only three times a week, so the de- 
parture is more of an event than an ordinary, 
every-day train. There were a number of pretty- 
Argentine senoritas down to see their friends off, 
wearing the gay Frenchy costumes which they 
like, and I sat watching their bright black eyes 
and dramatic gestures with a great deal of pleas- 
ure. Mr. E — handed me a parcel at the station, 
which, when opened, proved to be a fine large 
cake. I declare that cake just saved our lives on 
the long journey across the plains! By ten 
o'clock the last good-by to our hospitable friends 
was of necessity said, and we rolled away, soon 
leaving the city lights behind us. The moon, 



JjlapClpaTaelViqfede 




j rice versa 



por la Compariia National de Trasportes 

Administration . BlieilOS Aires , Balcarce Z36 } f .JMJ '*£ &ilA 



REFERENC/AS 



SANTIAGO 




VEL DEL HI A ft 



ACROSS THE ANDES 103 

which in the first quarter had hung wrong" side 
out in this southern sky, has now become full and 
looks like itself again. It shone beautifully clear, 
and dimmed the radiance of the fair southern 
cross, which so grows in one's affection as it be- 
comes familiar. 

The Pullman sleeping cars of the Argentine 
are not as luxurious as our so-called palace cars 
of the States, showing much less effort in the 
way of upholstery and elaboration. But this was 
not to be regretted, and they give you a com- 
fortable bed which answers the purpose very 
well. The trains make only fair time, not more 
than twenty miles an hour, I should say. You 
may look all over the world and you will not find 
any one who will take his own time like a Span- 
iard, and that blood is in the Argentino in spite of 
his enterprise. 

Early next morning I peeped curiously out at 
the new and strange landscape. Bless me, what 
a flat country! Flat as Holland; flatter even, if 
possible. Not an object to break the eye's long 
sweep to the horizon. Grass and sky, sky and 
grass, not even a stone as big as an egg for the 



io 4 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

small boy's diversion. I rubbed my eyes and felt 
relieved after a few minutes to see some cattle 
grazing; far-away dots they were, but they re- 
lieved a great lonesome stretch of country. A 
little later we arrived at Furino, a half-grown 
awkward town with low one-story brick and mud 
buildings, set unevenly about. Among the sta- 
tion loungers were a number of dark-skinned 
rough fellows with curious loose boots that came 
half-way to the knees, and carrying whips with 
silver-mounted handles. These are the gauchos 
or cowboys of South America. All day long we 
rode through this level country, fertile, it seems, 
but mostly undeveloped. There was nothing to 
break the monotony, only the green tussocks of 
pampas sending up occasionally their plumed, 
waving spikes, the coarse, low grass growing as 
far as the eye could see. Occasionally there were 
groups of cattle and horses, often their bleaching 
bones, and sometimes a far-away clump of trees 
would indicate an estancia, as they call a South 
American ranch or farm, where trees are always 
planted. 

The building of a railroad could not be more 



ACROSS THE ANDES 105 

simple and inexpensive than over this vast tract, 
where the slight slope to the Andes is so gradual 
that it is imperceptible, neither river, hill nor 
valley to stop the track's monotonous stretch or 
give it a winding course. I wonder if there is 
another railway in the world as long and straight 
and level. The villages we passed, with their 
miserable huts, were most forlorn, though before 
many years this part of the Argentine is likely to 
be irrigated and tilled, but the present inhabitants 
certainly fight against odds for existence. In the 
evening the landscape grew a little rougher, and 
we had a glimpse of the scrubby brush and low 
hills hinting of the mountains to come before the 
darkness closed down. In the morning we were 
at Mendoza with just time for a breakfast before 
we took the narrow-gage train of the Trans- 
andine Railway, which runs up through the cleft 
made by the Mendoza River. The little cramped 
coaches were crowded, and we sent up a prayer 
that this large-sized company was not all bound 
for Chili, a prayer which was answered, for a 
number were starting for the hunting of guan- 
acos and vicugnas in the mountains, others for 



106 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

some baths farther up the railway, and by the 
time we got to Punta de Vacas, the end of the 
railway, only about forty were left for the moun- 
tain journey. Almost all of these had put their 
fate in the hands of the Villa Longa Company, 
which sells you the convenient through tickets 
from ocean to ocean. 

The second morning at Mendoza the whole sky 
was covered with what seemed like heavy gray 
clouds, except for a narrow bright rim at the 
horizon, which reassured us somewhat, and in- 
deed before we were an hour on our way the 
rising sun had rolled this low-lying mist away as 
if by a magic wand, and a sky of clearest, purest 
blue hung over us. When we had left the fertile 
valley of Mendoza, with its tall poplars, corn- 
fields, and vineyards, we ran through desolate 
sandy wastes along the shallow bed of the stream 
directly toward the mountains. Finally we came 
so near it seemed we must run plump into them 
if we continued our journey; but no, at the last 
moment we slipped into a gorge, where the gaunt 
stone precipices rose in dizzy heights above our 
puffing, straining little train, as it climbed stead- 



ACROSS THE ANDES 107 

ily and slowly along the winding course of the 
river, first to one side and then to the other, cling- 
ing to the great cliffs and crossing on high 
bridges the dashing torrent far below. After a 
time the gorge widened into a narrow valley, 
where for hours we mounted, mounted, still fol- 
lowing the narrow stream's course between 
gaunt, timberless, massive mountains of stone, 
fascinating and awesome. It seems that this val- 
ley, with its giant slopes, must be an avenue of 
the gods. No hint of tiny, puny human life on 
these gaunt, tremendous slopes. A part of their 
solemn charm was the variety of coloring, and we 
never tired of watching the contrasting shapes 
and shades of these great foothills clear up to the 
beautiful line of snow, which began to peep in 
shining glory above their somber heads. Occa- 
sionally a scant brush clung to the slopes, but for 
the most part they were bare, naked granite and 
mineral rock, and more inscrutable and impres- 
sive for their lack of vegetation and life, their 
oppressive loneliness. 

Some of the mountains were twisted in lava 
shapes, burning with the colors of the crucible; 



108 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

it seemed they might have been molten only yes- 
terday. Others had hardened into stone that 
shone white in the sunlight, while just beyond in 
the vista would be a mighty peak that glowed 
dull red. A splendid company they are, the 
great mountains that lead the way to the Uspal- 
lata Pass, the forerunners of the eternal snows, 
which have ever for me a breathless, indescrib- 
able charm. How sweet, how gloriously pure the 
air blows over the peaks and snows! What a 
wonderful experience it is to climb to these great 
heights, where the snow-crested mountains stand 
for ever in lonely grandeur and centuries pass as 
days! How rare and exciting to penetrate the 
only narrow path across the great Cordilleras of 
the Andes, which extend in such a marvelous un- 
broken line from north to south of a continent ! 

At Punta de Vacas, the present end of the 
railway, there was a beautiful natural bridge, 
bubbling warm springs called Champagne, and 
baths in the side of the cliff, grotto-like. The 
bridge was formed by huge stalactite formations, 
beneath which the Cuevas River has cut its way 
for countless centuries. There was a good-sized 



ACROSS THE ANDES 109 

hotel here for invalids, and an Englishman, 
steaming away in one of the baths, said he could 
not walk when he came, but was now almost well. 

Toward sunset we came to a lower mountain, 
which blocked the end of the Inca Valley, and 
there we found mules awaiting us. We went up 
a zigzag path, looking back to the splendid wide 
valley where the sun was throwing its last red 
beams, then over the mountain we looked for- 
ward into the higher valley of Las Cuevas. 

"I am not going to wash my face till I get to 
Valparaiso, and you shall not either." This re- 
markable determination by F — is explained when 
I tell you that a man familiar with the journey 
had warned us not to use the snow water of the 
mountains, and assured us that an unwashed skin 
stood the snow, glare and wind much better than 
a washed one. 

Oh, how cold we were when we rose at half- 
past five at Las Cuevas ! "We will start at six," 
our driver said. "It is much warmer then than 
it is later." This was another curious statement 
for which there was also an explanation. In the 
early morning about sunrise there is less wind 



no ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

than later, and it is by all means advisable to go 
over the Cumbre when there is no wind. The 
wind is always bitter cold, and sometimes a veri- 
table hurricane sweeps through the gap against 
which the mules can not mount. Mules and men 
must crouch against the earth until the wind's 
violence is past. 

The route up to the Cuevas lies over a per- 
fectly barren lower mountain, which blocks the 
end of the valley and fills what would otherwise 
be a lower passage through to the Chilian side. 
At one time a wagon-road was completed from 
railway to railway, but the winter storms have 
destroyed it in many places and necessitated the 
mule trails again. The trail zigzags up the moun- 
tain-side, and when our party was set a-winding 
up the slope we looked like nothing so much as 
ants crawling up a mound of sand. A super- 
annuated mule with no harness, a bell around his 
neck, was the pilot, leading the way, and the 
other mules following. I felt most unhappy 
when any of the baggage-laden mules came near 
me, for they were loaded well out on each side 
and were only particular about finding a place 



ACROSS THE ANDES in 

for themselves, giving no thought to the scraping- 
off possibilities of their wide loads or to the 
nerves of travelers. Our irrepressible English 
friend, Mr. R — , convulsed us by speaking in 
tones and terms of affectionate praise to his ill- 
looking mule, calling him "Beauty," "Beauty," 
"Good Mule," and "Baby," when we were follow- 
ing along a narrow, precipitous path, then lam- 
basting him soundly on more level and less dan- 
gerous stretches. It was not at all a bad journey 
up, though a little frightful to look back over our 
steep path. The sun was getting well up, there 
was no wind, and, laden as we were with woolens 
and coats and over them heavy ponchos, the con- 
venient and picturesque outer garment of the 
country, we did not suffer from the cold. Neither 
did we suffer from puna, the mountain sickness, 
fortunately, though we were now at a height of 
eleven thousand feet above the ocean level. 

They who have a really perilous journey and 
suffer great hardship are the brave fellows who, 
in the winter, when the pass is filled with ice and 
snow, take the mails regularly across the moun- 
tains. Sometimes a life is lost in the attempt. 



ii2 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

There are queer little casuchas, or shelters, built 
for them along the way, which look like the old- 
fashioned brick ovens of our grandmothers. 
These have rounded tops, enormously thick walls, 
are strongly braced with iron to withstand ava- 
lanches, and have no light or air except from the 
low door and a small opening in the top. Life 
in them, shut up for days, as sometimes happens, 
must be the reverse of pleasant. 

At the summit of the Cuevas we stopped to 
have sensations, realizing that we were on the 
boundary between the Argentine and Chili. 
When we were talking about the weather in the 
morning Mr. R — had said, "It is sure to be Chili 
on the other side." And so it was, Chili and 
chilly, for we were in the western shadows and 
the sunbeams had not yet reached us, so we shook 
with the cold. We stood looking for a little while 
at the beautiful vista of snow mountains to the 
right and snow mountains to the left, a grand 
panorama of a lonely, lifeless region : utter soli- 
tude and barrenness, the land of the sky. Then 
we began the descent. Below us lay a valley 
so deep that one caught one's breath in look- 




A CHILENO BEAUTY 



ACROSS THE ANDES 113 

ing down into it, all shut in by the moun- 
tains that glowed in many colors, the hues of a 
painter's palette spilled on the earth. All day 
we descended these splendid valleys, down, down, 
down, thinking we saw the end of one only to 
have a new one open before us. The sound of 
mountain torrents was ever in our ears, rushing 
eagerly and swiftly to the Pacific, as those of the 
east to the Atlantic. These water-paths had made 
it possible to pierce the Cordilleras. The scenery 
on the Chilian side was finer than the Argentine, 
the mountains being yet more massive and richer 
in color. As we came winding down to a little 
group of buildings that lay far, far beneath us, 
we could see lying under the snow of the moun- 
tains a clear lake, as green as the sky above was 
blue. It was the Uspallata Lake, one of the high- 
est in the world, and surely the loneliest, no bush 
or bird or tree about it. The region around it 
must at some age have been torn in mighty con- 
vulsions, for the purple rocks twist and turn as 
if they had bubbled in a caldron and been tossed 
madly out. Down again we went, over a last 
wicked hill, where the descent was most unpleas- 



ii4 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

antly steep, the footing loose and the stones slip- 
pery, to El Portillo, where we found carriages 
waiting for us. The wagon-road lay curved be- 
low us like a great coiled snake, and our three 
mountain horses whisked us down in a jiffy 
through the dust to Juncal, where we had our 
second meal of the day, about two o'clock. It 
seemed incredible that we had left Las Cuevas 
only eight hours ago, so much had been crowded 
into those hours. Again we took carriages and 
were driven down another valley, which began to 
show traces of vegetation all the way to Salto de 
Soldado. The horses tore down the good but 
dusty road at a gallop, and after a mad ride of 
an hour we were at the other end of the Trans- 
andine Railway. We washed our faces once 
more, fidgeted for two hours, and then took the 
train for Santa Rosa and Valparaiso. 



CHAPTER X 

ON THE PACIFIC 

This April day, the middle of autumn down 
here, we are homeward bound, although we are 
making slow progress. We came into Iquique 
on the steamship Mapocho yesterday morning, 
and as I write, at half-past eight this evening, we 
are still coaling. Car-rr-amba! Car-rr-amba! 
That is not a wicked oath, as I thought at first, 
but a quiet, genteel and musical way of saying in 
Spanish, "Botheration! O dear!" You know 
how disagreeable a ship is when she is taking on 
coal, and you can imagine that we are impatient 
at having to wait forty-eight hours in a dull port. 
How we need the pacienca of the languorous 
Chilians! These west Pacific steamships are 
very slow, for they still combine the freight and 
passenger service and make many long stops, but 
they are not uncomfortable, and we must accept 
the inevitable with philosophy and thus enjoy 
115 



n6 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

our long trip up to San Francisco. Yes, San 
Francisco. For we have now decided to come 
home that way. Some Valparaiso acquaintances 
gave us such an unfavorable report of the line 
from Panama to New York that we decided to 
go the long way round. We're sure to enjoy the 
interesting Central American ports, only at this 
stage of our journey we are beginning to have 
enough of sailing and would like a direct route 
for home. At Callao, the port of Lima, we shall 
take the Palena, the best boat on the line. If you 
believe me, I have not had enough of South 
America, and am glad we are to see old Lima and 
have a trip over the wonderful Oroya Railway, 
the highest in the world. I am hungry for all I 
can get of the splendid Andean scenery, and Fd 
like nothing better than to take the difficult jour- 
ney into La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, and to 
Quito ; but it's always better to leave something 
for next time, and it would take months more 
to see all of this west coast. 

Valparaiso, the Vale of Paradise, could only 
be such to those of extraordinary climbing ability. 
The City of Stairsteps would be appropriate, 



ON THE PACIFIC 117 

for it is built up and down such steep, high 
cliffs, the little crowded houses barely stick- 
ing to the walls, with an occasional yard about 
the size of a door-mat that is kept in place by 
high walls of masonry. There are tiny zigzag 
paths called "climbs," which are the principal 
means of communication, though there are a few 
lifts from the lower to the upper town. The ever- 
debatable question among the people is as to 
which level is safer in times of the frequently re- 
curring earthquakes. The Spanish, in their love 
of ease, prefer the lower town and wonder why 
the Germans and English and other foreigners 
care to exert themselves by such strenuous climb- 
ing, while the foreigners will not risk being en- 
gulfed by a tidal wave. The tidal wave would 
probably sweep away the lower, while the earth 
would open up and swallow the upper town in a 
convulsion. 

We walked on the public promenade in the 
moonlight of Good Friday night to get a glimpse 
of the pretty Chilian girls in their gay gowns. 
The poor women always wear the black, shawl- 
like mantos in graceful folds about the head and 



n8 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

body, and black is always the prevailing color 
for church service. 

The great Aconcagua is in view at Valparaiso, 
though many miles away. It lifts its snowy crest 
twenty-five thousand feet high. The Uspallata 
Pass, through which we had come, lies between 
it and another great peak, the Tupungato. 

One of the oldest railroads of South America 
takes you to Santiago, the capital of Chili, one 
hundred and fifteen miles from Valparaiso with 
a gradual rise from the coast level to the height 
of eighteen hundred feet. 

The city is regularly laid out with wide, well- 
paved streets, covers a large area, and is said 
to have an equable and charming climate. Near 
the upper end of the town is a rocky hill, really a 
peak eight hundred feet high, called Cerro de 
Santa Lucia, which has been made into a beauti- 
ful park with winding drives and interesting paths 
which lead over many small bridges and under 
waterfalls, gradually ascending until the summit 
is reached, where there is a beautiful view of the 
city with the magnificent snow-capped Andes in 
the background. They appear so close that you 




A HACIENDADO 



ON THE PACIFIC 119 

get a good effect of the tremendous height. In 
this little park is an astronomical observatory and 
historical museum. A little farther down in the 
city is the National Library, the richest in South 
America in books relating to American History. 

The Plaza Independencia is quite imposing, and 
not like those of other large South American 
cities. In the center is a handsome marble foun- 
tain, and on the sides are the municipal buildings, 
fine shops and the largest cathedral in Chili. 

The capitol is an imposing structure of two 
stories, with rows of great columns, built of brick 
with the exterior of yellow stucco. In front is 
a small park which was formerly the site of the 
Jesuits' Church which was burned December 
eighth, 1868. This was caused by a lighted candle 
setting fire to some of the altar trimmings. The 
dreadful accident happened early in the evening 
during a special service for commemorating one 
of the saints' days when the church was filled 
mostly with women, and it is said that over two 
thousand lost their lives ! 

Our journey up from Valparaiso has been al- 
most in the shadow of the desert coast range, 



120 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

beautiful in the rich, warm shades of sand and 
rock, and especially so at sunset, when all is 
lighted gloriously. Along almost the whole of 
this western coast is a desert strip about one hun- 
dred miles wide; all the rains fall east of the 
great Andes Range or in its inner valleys. It 
never rains here. Strangely enough, Iquique, 
where we are now, is the second port of Chili in 
size, and it owes its existence entirely to the 
nitrate fields. The city is a flat, forlorn affair, 
though thriving, built directly on the desert. 
They bring fresh water one hundred and fifty 
miles to it. The whole place has a wild-west 
appearance and is a great curiosity to me. The 
harbor is full of big sailing vessels, which will 
carry the nitrate to all parts of the world. It is 
used, I believe, for a fertilizer and for making 
high-grade explosives. This nitrate of soda is 
found in all colors of the rainbow, but when 
chemically treated for market it all turns white. 
The inexhaustible nitrate beds lie back of the 
coast range in the first low valley, and the Iquique 
is the center of the industry. 

The Chilians are called the Yankees of South 



ON THE PACIFIC 121 

America, and from what we have seen we feel 
that they are a great deal more energetic than 
their neighbors. We hear that many English 
and Americans have made fortunes here. There 
are silver mines as well, and the old silver in the 
markets is interesting. In troublous times, the 
people, instead of putting their silver in the 
banks, make it into household utensils, plates, 
cups, bowls, even stirrups. I delighted my heart 
to-day with a charming little mate cup (pro- 
nounced mahtay), from which I shall hereafter 
take my mate in luxurious style. Sometimes its 
taste reminds me of the licorice root we used to 
chew on the way to school. I shall take some of 
the yerba home with me, and I learn that I can 
get more in the States. 

We had some good sea-food to-day, clams and 
crabs, at Cabancha, a pretty resort built out over 
the water, with beautiful views all around. 
Iquique is pronounced ee-kee-kay. The name 
seems to have been struck by an upheaving earth- 
quake. There are some pleasant traveling com- 
panions for us on board the Mapocho, Mr. Beau- 
clerc, the British Minister to Peru ; a clever young 



122 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

Frenchman, Monsieur Barth, who comes fre- 
quently to Peru and Chili on business and knows 
all about the history and customs ; and then there 
is a charming young couple, a Mr. and Mrs. R — . 
Mr. R — had an American father and a Chilian 
mother, and Mrs. R — was a Chilian girl. When 
we are all together it is funny to hear us pass 
Spanish, French and English around till all under- 
stand. 

The fleas are just chewing me up, taking course 
dinners on me right along and never touching 
F — . He says all sorts of smooth things about 
their good taste, but the fact that they revel on 
me is one that nobody regrets more than I. The 
same colony seems to have pursued me ever since 
it first joined me in Brazil. 

We landed at Pisco, going off in a small boat 
to the handsome long pier. Here was the first 
vegetation to gladden our eyes after the long 
journey along the desert coast, and the sight of a 
few waving palms reminded us that we were re- 
turning to the tropics. The sun beat down with 
force, but there was a fresh sea breeze. Indeed, 
the weather along this coast is irreproachable at 



ON THE PACIFIC 123 

this season. This wonderful Pacific is beautifully 
serene and smiling and the sky a lovely blue, 
but those who are poor sailors complain of the 
continual rolling of the ship. 

There is Pisco harbor and Pisco proper, with 
hardly a choice between them for dust and deso- 
lation. We wandered along the empty street 
bordering the harbor, looking for something to 
buy. Our first purchase was, I regret to say, a 
jug of the famous Pisco brandy, which is made 
from grapes and is as clear and colorless as 
water, with a flavor, too, which makes it a souve- 
nir worth having. This brandy is put up in 
native earthen jars, shaped a little like the bowl 
of a clay pipe, some of them enormous, standing 
four feet high when upright and stacked to- 
gether. It is an unwieldy and curious receptacle 
for liquor, easily broken, no doubt, and so shaped 
that it will not stand up without a prop. Our 
small jar, which we hope to carry home intact, 
will be a real curiosity to our friends who have 
never seen one. 

The port of Pisco is connected with the city 
proper by a tramway, whose rolling stock con- 



124 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

sists of one car drawn by two little mules, who 
amble back and forth, steered by a darky driver. 
The low, scattered houses along the way have no 
roofs, only bamboo screens to shut out the sun 
above, the only intruder from that direction, 
never any rain or mist. The blank adobe walls 
have occasional doors, and if there is anything 
of beauty or cheer in the place, it is kept for the 
patios. Even the verdure, that owes its exist- 
ence to irrigation, is rather painful to see. It 
suggests a precarious struggle for life on the part 
of the growing things, and the desolate dust as 
dry as a bone intrudes everywhere! And the 
people, bless me, what a strange collection! A 
few well-to-do, well-brushed and attractive men 
among the nondescript people, wearing the finely- 
woven, broad-brimmed Panama hats, which, by 
the way, come principally from Guayaquil. 
"You'll not find any Panama hats in Panama," 
some one said to me! Isn't it strange how per- 
sistently an article of commerce will take the 
name of a place it does not come from? Most 
India rubber comes from Brazil, most Peruvian 
bark from Bolivia, most Panama hats from Ecua- 



^ 




ON THE PACIFIC 125 

dor, and so on through the list. We are becom- 
ing accustomed to the many-shaded complexions 
of the South Americans, but it is especially curi- 
ous to note the traces of Indian blood among the 
common people of the region, just as we noted 
the features of the negroes in many lighter- 
skinned folk on the east coast, but Peru reserves 
still another surprise. In Pisco a funny little fat 
youngster about three years old came up to me 
and stood staring at me with wide-open eyes. 
I was quite as much of a curiosity to him as he to 
me, and that turn of affairs always amuses me. 
This urchin stood gazing at me as if fascinated, 
and as I looked down at him good-humoredly, my 
glance taking in his round, brown face and little 
black eyes, I suddenly gave a start. Where had 
I seen before such features, such beady, black, 
slanting eyes? In Chinese babies, as I live, no- 
where else ! Yes, if you will believe it, my small 
admirer or my critic, I shall never know which, 
had a mixture of Chinese and negro blood, an 
oddity indeed, but which is to be found fre- 
quently in Peru. Before I left Pisco I saw many, 
many faces that showed the Chinese strain. 



126 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

When we inquired for a hotel we were told 
that the only ones in Pisco town were Chinese, 
and we hastily decided to go back to the Ma- 
pocho for lunch. It seems that the Chinese were 
brought over from their country twenty or thirty 
years ago by an envoy, under contract to work 
in the cane fields, and once in the country they 
were reduced to a state of abject slavery, being 
chained together and driven in gangs to their 
work. After a while their condition became the 
subject of legislation, the abuses were done away 
with and they were freed, but they remain to-day 
the very lowest stratum of society, despised by the 
Peruvians and living only by the most menial 
work. In Pisco I saw the dragon-backed roofs 
and characteristic portal of the Chinese temple, 
and in Lima, I believe, there is a Chinese quarter 
like that in San Francisco. 

The ubiquitous old Spanish cathedral with its 
open bell towers fronting the ubiquitous Plaza 
was not without interest, but we liked better the 
shambling market, where we found the old 
crones of the place hovering over little booths of 
fruit which looked exceedingly tempting to our 




SELLING ALLIGATOR PEARS 



ON THE PACIFIC 127 

sharpened appetites. There were bananas, apples, 
pomegranates, mangoes, alligator pears, fresh 
dates, oranges, plums, yuccas, melons, grapes, 
all deliciously fresh and deliciously cheap. We 
carried away a famous lot of them, and I am 
enjoying the mangoes and alligator pears to my 
heart's content. We have seen none of these since 
we left them behind in this same latitude over in 
Brazil. The mango is a smooth yellow fruit like 
a great plum, which has a peculiar aromatic taste 
that is most tempting. Its detractors say it has a 
flavor of turpentine, but I think there is no fruit 
that surpasses it unless it is the acid-sweet mango- 
stine of the Orient. The skin has a strong flavor 
and must be carefully removed, when the golden 
juicy pulp, which clings to a large stone, makes 
the finest eating of the tropics. Like the water- 
melon, let me whisper, it will be most thoroughly 
enjoyed in a bath-tub or behind the barn door. 
The alligator pear or palta is a green, deadly- 
looking affair, but when cut apart and the big 
round stone removed, the brownish flesh of the 
fruit is very good. It has a decided nut flavor 
and with a bit of sugar and ice is a real delicacy. 



128 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

One of our passengers from Molendo is a baby- 
vicugna, the cunningest little fellow with yellow 
furry back, slender legs, long neck and big bright 
eyes. He raises his slim ears and sniffs the air 
like a deer. The vicugna is a goat-like animal of 
this region, prized for his soft skin, the prey of 
the hunter. At Iquique we saw many robes of 
yellow vicugna skin and heard that fine chinchilla 
is also found in the interior. The llama, a big 
cousin of the vicugna, is a pack animal of the 
Andes, coming over the mountains in great cara- 
vans from Bolivia. They bring light loads, how- 
ever, for this ungainly animal is the only one 
which I know that determines just how much he 
will carry and sticks to it in spite of all man's 
efforts to the contrary. He will submit to a small 
load, from sixty to one hundred pounds, but if 
more is put on he lies down and nothing under 
the sun will induce him to move until his pack is 
lightened. He defends himself, too, by vicious 
kicks and, like the vicugna, has a very reprehensi- 
ble habit of spitting upon those who torment 
him. 




LLAMAS 



CHAPTER XI 

THE CITY OF PIZARRO 

Our first thought on arriving at Lima was not 
so much of the picturesque old city of Pizarro 
itself as of arranging for a ride over the wonder- 
ful Lima and Oroya Railway, officially known 
as the Ferrocarril Central del Peru, of which so 
much has been said and written, probably the 
most marvelous example of railroad engineering 
in existence, as well as the most expensive road 
to build. It is the triumph of an American, Mr. 
Henry Meiggs, a practical engineer as well as a 
man of resources, though the thought of its pos- 
sibility originated in a Peruvian mind. It cost a 
lot of men and money: seven thousand human 
lives and forty-three million dollars. It assails 
the mighty Andes, winds up and up their forbid- 
ding slopes, undaunted by mountain, gorge, val- 
ley or precipice, climbs on and up in spite pf 
nature's most formidable barriers, rising three 
miles in less than one hundred, and finally pierces 
129 



i 3 o ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

the great divide by tunneling through Mount 
Meiggs at a height of fifteen thousand six hun- 
dred and sixty-five feet above the sea level, from 
which it started. At the present time there are 
only three passenger trains a week from Lima to 
Oroya, slow trains, too, and not arranged for 
tourists' comfort and pleasure, compelling travel- 
ers to stay over night at a miserable place in the 
mountains and then to take the long ride down 
again next day ; so my strenuous husband learned 
that La Favorita, a curious combination of en- 
gine and coach, using Peru petroleum for fuel, 
could be obtained for special parties, and he 
forthwith engaged it at an extravagant price. 
And the very next day after our arrival in Lima, 
having no time to invite friends to accompany 
us, we started on what seemed a most perilous 
trip, feeling very much excited and important 
and pleased to have a special train all to our- 
selves. Of course La Favorita had an engineer 
and his assistant. It was an ideal way to go, for 
we could stop and start at the hours we pleased, 
lingering as well at the many interesting points 
along the way. 



THE CITY OF PIZARRO 131 

From the time the low plain between Lima 
and the foothills is crossed it is one continuous, 
toilsome, wonderful climb toward the heights. 
One feels the masterful, undaunted mind of the 
engineer at every step. It is usually called the 
greatest piece of engineering in the world, though 
we know wonders have been accomplished else- 
where and greater things are yet in store. It is 
certain that nothing more daring has been at- 
tempted than the Infernillo, the "Little Hell" of 
the Oroya. Its name gives one an idea of what a 
ticklish place it is. Here is a point that seems 
impenetrable. The huge mountains narrow to a 
gorge, whose straight sides rise sheer for thou- 
sands of feet above the dashing Rimac. The nar- 
row opening is tortuous, and you might throw 
a stone across it. What a doubly awe-inspiring 
place it must have been before the opposite 
mountains were pierced by the tunnels, for it is 
here that the railroad, coming up through a 
winding tunnel in the solid rock, crosses the 
bridge that hangs above the tremendous gorge 
and plunges into another tunnel again immedi- 
ately. We stopped on the hanging bridge over 



132 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

the cavern and had a magnificent view from it up 
and down the gorge. When you go through the 
tunnel that pierces Mount Meiggs, the Galera 
Tunnel, it is called, the middle point is the high- 
est on the road, fifteen thousand six hundred and 
sixty-five feet, the waters from its eastern en- 
trance flowing toward the Atlantic, from its 
western toward the Pacific Ocean. All about are 
great glaciers and mountains of snow. These 
mountains are rich in minerals and where ex- 
posed are beautifully tinted in many colors. You 
know the meaning of the Indian word Andes is 
"mountains of copper." The Rimac River, which 
empties into the ocean at Callao, is not a large 
stream; a part of the year it becomes quite dry, 
but at others it is a mad, foaming torrent, which 
has cut a deep pathway in the rocks on its long 
descent from the summit of the Andes. The fol- 
lowing of this river offered the only route for the 
railroad. It leaves it of necessity only when its 
descent is too abrupt. The railway winds and 
twists, loops over itself, skirts breath-taking 
precipices, tunnels no end of times, passes over 
several hanging bridges with the rapid changes 



THE CITY OF PIZARRO 133 

of a cinematograph, and see-saws back and forth 
up the mountain steeps in what is called the V 
system. 

Mr. Meiggs in his lifetime carried the road only 
as far as Chicala, I believe, but it now goes down 
the east slope as far as Oroya. Oroya is no place 
in particular, just a mining settlement as yet, and 
the road must be built still farther before through 
traffic of any sort is opened up and made profita- 
ble. When the road is extended into the coffee- 
growing regions and from there to the water- 
ways of the Amazon, the Atlantic will be con- 
nected with the Pacific in this part of South 
America. Now you can only finish the gap on 
mule-back by narrow, dangerous and precipitous 
trails, then through the jungle to the navigable 
tributaries of the Amazon. A gentleman living 
in Peru told me he had a son over in the Amazon 
district, beyond the Andes. Their letters are ex- 
changed back and forth by way of New York, 
though they are really only a few hundred miles 
apart. From this side they go to Panama, then to 
New York, then to Para, on the Amazon, then up 
the river, taking three months in all ! 



134 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

We spent the night at Matucana, going from 
there on to the summit and making the return 
journey the next day. At intervals we would 
give chase to some llamas and my heart would be 
in my mouth from the great danger to them and 
to ourselves. At other times we would meet 
them, laden with ore, coming down from the 
mountains and using the railway as a convenient 
though treacherous path. 

The weather was perfect, and we did not suf- 
fer much from the dreaded sirroche, or mountain 
sickness, as many do. It is often a serious mat- 
ter and recovery from it is slow. The altitude 
causes excruciating pains in the head and back, 
nausea and sometimes hemorrhage. My pulse 
was quickened, my breath came short, and my 
head felt a bit dizzy, but F — '$ pulse was beating 
as steadily as at sea level. By the time we got 
down to Casatalca I had a severe headache for 
about an hour, but it passed away and I arrived 
at Lima at half-past eight in remarkably good 
trim after such a long, trying journey. La 
Favorita is a bit rough, noisy, too, and also 
smelly of the petroleum. The Indians (Cholos) 




LA FAYORITA 



THE CITY OF PIZARRO 135 

who are born and grow up in the mountains are 
the only men who can work at the elevation of 
the big smelter at Casatalca, twelve thousand 
feet. The Bockus and Johnston's smelter it is, 
and Mr. Guyer, the manager, knows some old 
friends of ours. It pleased F — to see a calen- 
dar of his firm lying on Mr. Guyer's desk. Think 
of finding it at that height in the Andes ! 

I must tell you that the latest news from Chili 
gives an account of a terrible loss of life in the 
Uspallata Pass, over which we came a short time 
ago. Fourteen people lost their way in a heavy 
snow-storm and were frozen to death. It was too 
late in the season for a safe crossing. 

From first to last our visit in Lima has been 
charming and marked by several social events of 
interest. You remember Mr. Beauclerc, the 
British minister to Peru, our fellow passenger on 
the Mapocho. It is strange to learn that he was 
in Hong Kong while we were all there four years 
ago. Soon after we arrived in Lima we received 
an invitation to dine with him and his daughter. 
We were secretly rejoiced to have a taste of food 
not flavored with onions or garlic. Mrs. Beau- 



136 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

clerc is in London with her younger children, 
and the oldest daughter remains here with her 
father, a beautiful English girl, five feet eleven 
inches, a perfect Du Maurier type, and only 
seventeen years old. She was in school in Brus- 
sels several years, and though so young, she fills 
the rather trying place of hostess remarkably 
well. The dinner was an elegant affair, beauti- 
fully prepared by a French cook and beautifully 
served, with no end of wines. Mr. Beauclerc paid 
me a pretty compliment by having my name on 
the menu, "Glace Delight." My left-hand neigh- 
bor at the table was a most agreeable young 
Frenchman. The other guests were the German 
minister with an unrememberable name, an in- 
teresting woman from Washington, D. C., who 
now resides in Lima, a Mr. V — and Mr. and 
Mrs. Ahers. Mr. Ahers is a correspondent of the 
London Times and was married about a year ago 
to a wealthy and handsome American girl. Mrs. 
Ahers was dressed in black, which I learned she 
was wearing for the queen. She wants to sell her 
place near Lenox, Massachusetts, and go to Eng- 
land to live ! 



THE CITY OF PIZARRO 137 

Mr. Dudley, our American minister, enter- 
tained us at a very elaborate breakfast with the 
same guests and a few more added. Mr. Dudley 
is a fine American, the sort of man who represents 
us with dignity in a foreign land. Would that 
we had more representatives like him ! I had the 
honor of going out with him to the breakfast, so 
felt "quite proud and haughty," as Blanche R — 
used to say. The Dudleys have an attractive home 
with a beautiful garden, but Mrs. Dudley is now 
in Evanston, Illinois. I notice that many of the 
wives are away from here, so I judge they do 
not like South America for a residence, nor 
would I. I grow to have more and more sympa- 
thy for the expatriated. 

Oh ! I have so many things to tell you of Lima, 
the old Spanish city, but I have not the patience 
to write them all down, besides a book might be 
written about Lima alone. Its narrow, cobble- 
stone streets, its old houses with beautiful carved 
wood balconies, its curious cathedral, showing 
the bullet marks of a recent revolution; its old 
adobe-walled university, founded in 1508; its 
hall of deputies, with its tales of assassination; 



138 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

its convents, its missions, its art collections, as 
well as its fine public gardens, its street lights of 
the present day and its active business interests ! 

I want to make your eyes stand out with an 
account of what we have seen in the pawnshops 
of Lima. Pawnshop visiting is quite the fashion 
here, for since Peru has lost her rich nitrate and 
guano beds, which made many of the Peruvians 
so fabulously rich, many rare and fine things 
have found their way into the pawnshops. I'll 
tell you how I accidentally stumbled on to one in 
the shadow cf the archbishop's palace in Lima. 
'Twas a dingy little hole in the wall. What daz- 
zling strings of diamonds the little faded pro- 
prietor swung before my eyes ! You shall hear of 
a purchase F — and I made, but 'twas not a dia- 
mond necklace. Such a quantity of old silver in 
the market, too. They let it stay dingy and it 
looks like tin, but it is really pure silver and sells 
by weight. I bought some little religious placques 
in silver that are characteristic of the place. 

I can not write of everything, but I shall have 
to make a fresh chapter of my first, last and only 
sight of a bull-fight. 



CHAPTER XII 
a woman's impressions of a bull-fight 

There is not a more interesting city in South 
America than Lima — Leema, as it is always called, 
where the soft Spanish vowels are known — 
Pizarro's City of the Kings, with its strange 
rainless climate, its flimsy yet substantial-looking 
houses, its quaint balconied streets, its black-eyed 
Limenas, their pretty heads wound in the sober 
manto and usually going devoutly on their way 
to the endless churches ; its stirring history, that 
runs back to the Spanish conquerors, and weaves 
in the thread of the ever-romantic story of the 
lordly Incas. History starts from the paving- 
stones, as it does in Paris. 

Lima, lying in the shadow of the great Cor- 
dilleras of the Andes, with the breath of the 
twentieth century blowing but faintly upon it as 
yet, takes one back a hundred years or two from 
United States standards. Parenthetically, — I 
139 



140 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

wonder why we, of the United States, have come 
to call ourselves Americans and the American 
People, as though it designated our nationality, 
when there are no end of other Americans of 
many colors and tongues almost from pole to 
pole. When we travel abroad we have to be more 
explicit, and it is amusing to notice, though it's 
perhaps no more than natural, that south of the 
equator they give us a Roland for our Oliver 
and we occupy second or third place as Ameri- 
cans! 

Lima is picturesque and charming. When one 
has made the round of the churches, and the lat- 
er-day public buildings, of which the citizens are 
justly proud, visited the Senate and thrilled over 
the dark horrors of the Inquisition that once took 
place in that historic building, gazed admiringly 
at the statue of Bolivar the Liberator, in the 
plaza (Boleever he's called!), dulled a trifle 
one's charmed interest in the fascinating silver 
and old jewelry in the shops and pawnshops, 
there remains the bull-fight to be seen. Bull- 
fights, as every one knows, are often heard of 
but seldom seen, and have much of the attraction 




ON THE OROYA RAILWAY 



IMPRESSIONS OF A BULL-FIGHT 141 

that hovers around harems, and joss houses, and 
moats and dung-eons, and other things distinctly 
un-United States. But bull-fights are every-day 
matters, Sunday matters rather, in Peru, and 
such is the elasticity of conscience, that, far away 
from home, one forgets for the moment that one 
has been properly brought up, and wishes to see 
one! 

Bull-fighting is the national sport in Peru, and 
Peru and Bolivia are the only countries in South 
America, I believe, where it is allowed; I speak 
of the fights to the death, where the bull is killed. 
"It could not be stopped here," I heard an Eng- 
lishman say, "it would cause a revolution imme- 
diately, " so it must have a strong hold among 
the people. The bull-fighting of Peru has suf- 
ficiently gory features, I am sure, but it is much 
less cruel and bloody than the fights in Spain, 
where the men fight the bull from horses, misera- 
ble worn-out old hacks which they purposely al- 
low the bull to gore, making no effort to save 
them. I doubt if I could witness such a fight as 
that. In Peru there is a bit of exciting play with 
the bull by the horsemen at first, but they are 



142 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

soon withdrawn and the horses are never injured. 
The bull-ring in Lima, inaugurated by the Span- 
iards in 1768, is one of the largest in the world, 
being about two hundred and fifty feet in diame- 
ter, and can accommodate, when crowded, ten 
thousand people. The large size of the ring is 
really a disadvantage to the fighters. It tires 
them out to make such long runs and they dislike 
it. Some of the men are Spanish, some natives, 
and bull-fighting is even in favor among ama- 
teurs in Lima. There is a young Englishman 
who fights a bull admirably as an amateur sport. 
This particular corrida that we saw was given 
as a benefit for the French fire company and was 
pronounced the best of the season, the bulls being 
good fighters and the attendance large. The fire 
companies in South America are volunteers from 
among a very good class of men, and these 
French bomberos, who were scattered about in 
gay uniforms, lent a very pretty touch to what is 
really a picturesque scene. The advertisements 
had announced that the fight would begin at half- 
past three o'clock on Sunday afternoon, and that 
six bulls would be killed. Some of the shop win- 



IMPRESSIONS OF A BULL-FIGHT 143 

dows had displayed photographs of the bulls 
browsing quietly in an open field all unconscious 
of their doom. A gaily-painted booth in the 
Plaza de Armas also called the attention of the 
public to the event and solicited attendance. The 
bulls were curiously named — Smoke, Fire, Ter- 
ror, Alarm, Water and Tranquillity — why Tran- 
quillity I can not imagine. 

We had accepted the invitation of a kind Eng- 
lish friend, Mr. E — , to occupy a box with him, 
and our American minister, Mr. Dudley, was to 
make a congenial fourth. So on Sunday morning 
I opened my eyes with that agreeable feeling that 
the day was to be an eventful one. I was to see a 
bull-fight! Conflicting little sensations ran up 
and down my spine, for I dreaded to go quite as 
much as I wanted to go, while gruesome curiosity 
was drawing me as a spider does a fly. "Why 
did I want to see it at all?" I give you that 
woman's reason — Because ! 

The day of a bull-fight is a good deal like cir- 
cus day at home, the same pleasant titillation of 
excitement in the air, the same small boy who 
wants to go and hasn't the price of a ticket. At 



144 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

three o'clock we drove away from our hotel, 
crossed the Plaza de Armas and made our way 
toward the old bridge known as the Stone 
Bridge, which crosses the Rimac. This venerable 
bridge of Chorrillos granite, which has the solid 
handsome lines of an old Roman structure, was 
built by order of one of the Spanish viceroys in 
1608, and stands to-day, in spite of the attacks 
of earthquake and flood, offering the same quaint 
arched path to the wayfarer that it did a hundred 
or two hundred years ago. We found many 
other carriages bound in our direction and, driv- 
ing past the Alameda de Acho, a long green ave- 
nue of as fine trees as you will find in Lima, we 
arrived at the bull-ring. 

The open place in front of the new Balta 
bridge was rilled with people. There were many 
booths about where they were selling red chicha, 
instead of lemonade. The crowd was moving 
toward the ring, which stands in a space that has 
been closed about with buildings and is reached 
through several entrances from the neighboring 
streets. The ring itself is built in amphitheater 
f ashion, the entrance to the seats and boxes being 



IMPRESSIONS OF A BULL-FIGHT 145 

through little doors on the outside. Those who 
occupy places above climb to an outside circular 
balcony, from which the doors lead in. On the 
ground floor there is a circle of curious low 
boxes which give the inmates barely room to 
stand. The only windows are long, narrow, hori- 
zontal slits, through which one peers directly into 
the ring. The contest must look doubly exciting 
from this place on the ground, where the bull and 
the fighters are often within touching distance of 
the spectator. I was told that the devotees of the 
sport go there. We mounted to the more fashion- 
able upper tier of boxes, little compartments up 
under the roof, where there was a circle of well- 
dressed folk in French costume. 

Look about with me ! In the large circle below 
us are the people, a great crowd, largely men, 
with the Panama hat much in evidence, and occa- 
sionally the head of a woman, swathed in the 
black manto of the country, a somber nun-like 
head-dress, with here and there the uniform of a 
bombero. Over above the band-stand, where the 
band is playing a lively air, with a click of casta- 
nets that gets into one's toes, is the president's 



146 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

box, draped in red and gold. Romana is there 
with some of his cabinet and watches the fight 
like a man of wood, showing no excitement if he 
feels it. A bull-fight perhaps seems a tame affair 
to a South American president. The late-comers 
are taking their seats. The big crowd is ex- 
pectant, waiting, with its eye on the box of the 
judges opposite. 

I studied the bull-ring proper curiously. It is a 
big sandy circle, open to the sky. There are the 
wide wooden doors through which the bull is to 
come. Directly facing it are the doors through 
which the horsemen are to appear. At intervals 
around the ring are low wooden screens, painted 
in harlequin colors, with narrow openings at the 
sides and in the middle, which are meant to save 
the fighter when pursued by the bull. A high step 
also runs around the ring on which he may climb, 
at a pinch, to escape the bull's wicked horns. In 
the center is a small square of stout poles, set a 
little apart, into which he can also slip, leaving 
the baffled animal outside. This may sound like 
considerable protection, but it is really very 
small, for the ring is large, especially so, I am 



IMPRESSIONS OF A BULL-FIGHT 147 

quite sure, when an enraged bull is very close 
behind. 

Suddenly there is a signal. The band begins 
a marching step as the fighters appear — the 
cuadrilla, as the company is called. They form a 
square and march around the ring, while the 
crowd waves and shouts applause. The cuadrilla 
makes a brave array. First, the leader, Manuel 
Corzo, known as Corcito, "the little Corzo" ; then 
the espadas, called also the matadores, the 
swordsmen who give the skilful death-blow; 
then the handerilleros and capeadores, who plant 
the banderillas and wave their gay cloaks to en- 
rage the foe; then the capeadores de a caballo, 
the mounted fighters who receive the animal as 
he dashes into the ring ; and, following them, the 
gaily-caparisoned four-in-hand, whose duty it is 
to drag away the fallen, vanquished bull. The 
espadas and handerilleros wear the Spanish cos- 
tume, that has always a touch of Andalusian ro- 
mance: a velvet jacket and knee breeches, richly 
embroidered in tinsel, colored stockings and flat 
black slippers. On their heads they wear an odd 
black cap with a Spanish pompon on either side. 



148 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

Their hair is drawn into a comical knot behind, 
from which a flat black ribbon dangles. The 
horsemen must be a Peruvian evolution, for they 
wear broad-brimmed Panama hats, and their 
shapely little horses have the handsome braided 
and silver-mounted bridles of the country. The 
saddles have the big- carved wooden stirrups as 
well, while down the horse's back runs a dia- 
mond-shaped flap of carved leather. 

There is a murmur of recognition among the 
crowd. "Corcito! El Rubio! Fosforito!" we 
hear them say, each fighter having a pet name by 
which he is known. "Ah, Chaleco! Oye, Chal- 
eco !" and a burst of applause, for it is Chaleco, 
the lithe, the daring, who seems to be the popular 
favorite. With what easy grace he steps, ac- 
knowledging the compliments by showing his 
white teeth in a smile. Now the procession has 
made the round and withdraws to one side. 
There is a scramble among the hangers-on in the 
ring for the honor of taking care of the bright 
capes which some of the fighters discard, while 
Chaleco runs over and stops under the presi- 
dent's box. What is he going to do? To dedi- 



IMPRESSIONS OF A BULL-FIGHT 149 

cate the first bull to the president, if you please, 
as a mark of especial esteem. I was too far away 
to catch Chaleco's words, but enjoyed the rare 
grace of his gestures as, cap in hand, he made his 
little speech. Then he tossed his cap high into the 
president's box and ran back quickly to take his 
place. 

A buglei)lew. A single capeador cantered over 
toward the wooden doors toward which we had 
been furtively glancing, from time to time. He 
is to go through the little ceremony of "receiving 
the bull," as it is called, a position which none of 
us envies him. His horse plunges about nervous- 
ly. He evidently knows just what is going to 
happen, but whether he is enjoying himself or is 
inclined to flunk, I can not tell. The doors swing 
back and out rushes the bull. His temper is evi- 
dently already upset. He makes straight for the 
horseman, who deftly turns aside, flaunting his 
red cape before the bull's eyes. He turns angrily 
and makes for him again, and again, and again, 
the rider escaping his charges each time by what 
seems a perilously narrow margin of space. It is 
a daring, pretty feat. The bull is a powerful 



150 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

black and white animal and his horns look omin- 
ously sharp. 

The bugle blows and the horse canters away. 
The second act of the tragedy is about to begin. 
The bull paws angrily, looking from one to an- 
other of his tormentors. The little company of 
fighters edge toward him, always on the alert to 
save one another, to protect the man who dares 
the bull's wrath. As they wave their cloaks he 
runs first at one and then at another, but they 
spring aside as he charges heavily toward them, 
or run for safety to the screens. El Rubio runs 
forward. In each hand he has a wooden stick, 
about a yard in length, gaudily decorated in col- 
ored tissue paper. In the end is a cruel barb. The 
bull charges toward him. You hold your breath. 
It seems he must get him. "Oh, he has him !" — 
but no, at the last moment El Rubio leans for- 
ward; with a quick thrust he plants a banderilla 
on either side of the bull's fat neck near the shoul- 
ders, and like a flash springs aside, not an instant 
too soon to save his skin. 

It is well done ! The banderillas both stick and 
there is a flash of applause. The bull raises his 



IMPRESSIONS OF A BULL-FIGHT 151 

head and strides on toward another foe, who is 
waving the hated red cloak. The banderillas flap 
against his neck and little streams of blood flow 
from the wounds, but blood is what the people 
want. Again a less skilful hand plants the 
banderilla in his neck. Only one sticks this time. 
A third time the effort is made. Now he is bar- 
barously decorated for the slaughter. He drags 
the cloak of the last banderillero half-way across 
the ring on the tip of his horn, so close he was to 
impaling the man himself. 

Now comes Chaleco with his easy, command- 
ing stride. Every muscle of his shapely body is 
on the alert, no doubt, but he shows perfect com- 
posure, a superb daring. The bull glares at him 
for a moment, as if astonished, then he darts for 
him. "Oh, Chaleco! Jump! Jump! Save your- 
self!" you feel like screaming. But no, Chaleco 
has the agility and the nerve to spring, at the last 
possible moment, coolly aside from the maddened 
animal. It was just far enough to escape him. 
The dust flies up in a cloud, but you see that he is 
safe. There he stands, barely a step away from 
where he was before, calm, erect, smiling at the 



152 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

cheers, while the stupid bull has gone on, divert- 
ed by another enemy. If you are not made of ice 
your heart beats fast. Truly it was well done. 
"Bravo, Chaleco!" and you find yourself clap- 
ping your hands! The bull, the ethics of the 
sport are forgotten. It is the skill, the daring, 
that attracts. There are those who say that bull- 
fighting is not dangerous. From the outside of 
the ring they pronounce it child's play, but I ven- 
ture to say they would not accept an invitation to 
change places with Chaleco. These attacks and 
escapes are sometimes too thrilling for the novice 
to watch. Several times I turned my head, find- 
ing the excitement too great a strain. Once 
Chaleco stood for some seconds facing the angry 
bull, his feet set together, not four feet away 
from him. Another time he turned his back on 
the furious but puzzled animal and walked coolly 
away, while a hushed "Ah!" of admiration and 
appreciation came from the crowd. 

The bugle blows again. This is the last act. 
The bull is doomed. The matador, the killer, 
takes the stage. The little company circle around 
him, the gay colors of their costumes making a 



IMPRESSIONS OF A BULL-FIGHT 153 

bright touch in an intense picture. They edge al- 
ways toward the bull as he goes about the ring, 
scattering if he attacks them, but coming cau- 
tiously back again. The matador has thrown 
away cap and cloak. He looks repressed, intent. 
The noises in the crowd die away one by one. 
In his left hand he holds a red cloth mounted on 
a stick; in his right, a sword. Several times he 
angers the bull with the flag so that he charges, 
but the matador springs away. He does not 
strike. "Kill him, Corcito!" the crowd cries, 
"Good boy ! Kill him !" The bull charges again. 
Are you anxious to know just how he struck 
him? Forgive me that; that I can not tell you. 
I did not once find the courage to look when the 
matador made the thrust. When I looked again 
the bull was running about the ring with the 
sword buried deep in his back, between the 
shoulders. The hilt and a part of the blade stood 
out and dark crimson blood was pouring down 
his glossy neck. It was not a death blow, alas! 
They waited a moment to see if the blow were 
vital, but it was not. Three times they had to 
give this first bull the sword-thrust before he 



154 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

died, and he fought them to the last. I breathed 
a sigh of relief when I knew that he was gone. 
As soon as he dropped a man ran out and gave 
him the coup de grace, though I suppose he was 
already beyond suffering, severing the spinal 
cord at his neck with a small instrument. He lay 
there a moment, a limp, pathetic heap, while 
some boys quickly tore out the banderillas, as 
souvenirs, I suppose; then the Arrastradores de 
Cab alio ( !), (who get their names on the pro- 
gram at the bottom) came in with a grand flour- 
ish to take him away. The bull's head was lashed 
to a low two-wheeled drag, and a hook being 
fastened to this, the four horses hauled him out 
at a gallop, making a great sweep around the cir- 
cle at full speed. The first of the six bulls was 
done for, and we had seen a bull-fight ! 

The mat ad ores ran over to the president's box 
and bowed low, while a shower of coins fell in 
the ring around them. Then they all marched 
around, the crowd cheering lustily, many throw- 
ing their hats ahead of the procession, the men 
picking them up and tossing them back again. 
This pulse of the crowd is one of the stirring 



IMPRESSIONS OF A BULL-FIGHT 155 

features of the fight. They follow it so closely, 
are so impassioned. My heart was dancing with 
mingled feelings, interest and repugnance each 
having a place, for bull-fighting is a sport like 
another where skill and daring call for admira- 
tion, and is undeniably exciting. The bull repre- 
sents a certain dangerous force to be overcome. 
His rights, more's the pity, are not considered. 
I appreciated in a measure the fascination, for 
while I was there the cruelty of the struggle did 
not affect me as it did afterward, when all the 
gruesome details stood out clearly, and the horrid 
wounds in the poor creature's throat and the 
flowing blood haunted me. 

But like other things of which we hear hair- 
raising tales, bull-fighting turned out to be rather 
less dreadful than I expected. For one thing, the 
bull is in the ring much less time than I thought. 
The third bull, El Fuego, who was a quick, dan- 
gerous fighter, was killed six minutes and a half 
after he entered the ring. It seemed incredible 
when we heard the time — we had lived an hour ! 
— but Mr. Dudley assured us that he kept careful 
account. The bull ran in at 4.08, at 4.10 the 



156 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

horsemen retired, from 4.10 to 4.14 the capea- 
dores played the bull, and at 4.14 the matador 
killed him. It was a strange and awesome thing 
to see the great creature die. The first blow went 
straight to the heart, only the little red hilt of 
the sword showing against his hide. He stood, 
breathing heavily, then took two or three stag- 
gering steps, blood gushing from his mouth, and 
fell down dead. If these bulls suffer keenly they 
do not show it. They do not bellow or writhe, so 
let us hope, for their sake, that their taking-off is 
as merciful as the one they would meet at the 
hands of the butcher. They fall into his hands, 
anyway, let me whisper, as soon as they leave the 
bull-ring. Bulls are heavy, unsympathetic, stu- 
pid creatures. Better kill a bull than a deer. The 
effect most to be deplored is that on the spec- 
tators, to whom this sight of blood and death can 
be nothing but debasing. 

We sat in the bull-ring a scant hour and a half, 
and in that time six bulls were killed. One bull 
was cowardly. He would not attack either horses 
or men, thereby unwittingly prolonging his life. 
iC Al corral" they shouted, meaning to take him 




ENTRANCE TO LEGISLATIVE HALL, LIMA 



IMPRESSIONS OF A BULL-FIGHT 157 

back to the pen. The method of getting him out 
of the way was amusing. The doors opened and 
three steers came galloping in, followed by some 
cowboys on horseback. Sir Taurus lifted his 
head and sniffed the air. In these strange and 
bewildering surroundings he recognized some 
old friends and ran over to them. Then the 
cowboys rounded them all up and drove them out 
in a bunch. 

The appetizing lunch that was served to us in 
one of the intervals had a distinct local flavor. 
Papas con aji and chicha was the bill of fare. 
The papas amarillas, yellow potatoes, that one 
finds in Peru are as good-flavored as they are 
golden, and covered with thin slices of peppers, 
lettuce, and, of course, onions, make a very pret- 
ty dish. I am sure a South American would miss 
onions from his food as we would miss salt. 
That onion savor pursues pne from Panama to 
Cape Horn. San Lorenzo in Peru, it is said, is 
the home of the potato. Chicha, the national 
drink, is a pleasant beverage, red and sweetish, 
which is prepared from red corn. Just before the 
end of the last fight there was a great scuffling 



158 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

and scampering over at one side. They were let- 
ting a swarm of small boys in to see the finish. 
Evidently these young folk are being brought up 
to enjoy the national game. The bull-ring is in 
the hands of the Beneficent Society ! 

When we returned to the Francia e Inglaterra 
there was a small boy in the upper hall. In one 
hand he had a little cane, in the other a red hand- 
kerchief. "Toro!" he shouted, waving his hand- 
kerchief and thrusting with his cane. 

"Oh yes," said Madame Torre, our plump and 
smiling little French landlady. "He likes to play 
the torero." 

This is the bull-fight as I saw it, a fine Sunday 
afternoon in April, nineteen hundred and one. 
How clean-cut first impressions are! How much 
familiarity does to change them ! Of pin-pricks of 
conscience I will not speak. The spectacle rolls 
now before my eyes, half as a dream, a bit of 
thrilling decadent sport, a picture not soon for- 
gotten. 



CHAPTER XIII 

IN THE LAND OF PANAMA HATS 

We are in the land of Panama hats — Payta to- 
day, Guayaquil to-morrow. The sky is cloudless, 
the sea a beautiful green, while the desert's sandy 
shore gleams a soft yellow-pink through a light 
haze. The big, green swells rock the Palena like 
a cradle. There is a chatter of Spanish, Italian 
and English outside my cabin and the micro- 
scopic bark of a microscopic doglet, who is on 
his small way to Genoa. We have several canary 
birds, too, as first-class passengers. The weather 
is beautifully cool. Yesterday the thermometer 
went down to sixty-five degrees. Think of it, 
the thermometer at sixty-five degrees in the re- 
gion of seven degrees south latitude! At seven 
degrees, north, we shall be sizzling. The cool 
breezes of this part of the Pacific and the re- 
markably pleasant climate of the coast are due 
to the Humboldt Antarctic Current, which brings 
iS9 



i6o ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

a refreshing breath to this tropical land all the 
way from the far-away southern ice fields. The 
evening we left Callao the breeze was so fresh 
that the passengers were wearing their overcoats 
and jackets. The sun set gloriously that evening, 
dropping like a great red balloon into the sea, 
and sending rosy beams over the high chain of 
the Andes that lies just back of the coast. From 
the deck of the Palena we could look away back 
over the green valley of the Rimac and see the 
spires of the many churches in Lima. I wish 
that I might hear again the deep ring of its great 
Cathedral bell. 

Next morning we awoke to find ourselves 
steaming past just such a barren coast as had 
greeted our eyes all the long journey up from 
Valparaiso. The minor ports on this west coast 
are as like as two peas, with scarcely a feature to 
distinguish them. The whole coast strip of Peru 
is a desert, except where the mountain streams 
from the Andes have cut their way down to the 
sea and so permit irrigation along their banks. 
The coast towns give no hint of the fertile, 
verdant valleys which lie beyond and between 



IN THE LAND OF PANAMA HATS 161 

the ranges of the mountains. In these lowlands 
a great deal of sugar-cane is raised, cocoa and 
sugar being Peru's chief exports. 

This afternoon, just after leaving Payta, we 
passed the most western point of South Amer- 
ica, and with a glass could see the many derricks 
that dot the oil fields of Payta. The venders of 
Panama hats came aboard, and, though we 
dickered with a blear-eyed old Indian for a while, 
we decided to wait for the greater choice that we 
can have in Guayaquil. A number of Guayaquil 
passengers came aboard who had been down to 
Payta taking the sea-baths. 

The early morning finds us in Guayaquil. 
While we slept the Palena has threaded her way 
thirty-five miles up the broad Guayas River from 
the coast, and now lies opposite the city, the chief 
port of this land of Ecuador, in English, the 
Equator. We rubbed our eyes in astonishment 
when we first stepped out on deck. What an 
amazing transformation ! Yesterday evening we 
left a barren shore, cool breezes, clear skies ; this 
morning the sky is full of watery clouds, the air 
is oppressively warm and everything is sticky 



162 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

and damp. The banks of the broad river are 
beautifully green and luxuriant and clumps of 
tall cocoanut palms fringe the sky. The Guayas 
River, the largest on the Pacific side of the con- 
tinent, into which many of the small tributaries 
of the Andes flow, is a mile wide at Guayaquil, 
making a harbor for the largest of the Pacific 
steamships. The water is muddy and thick, but 
from the river Guayaquil looks like a clean, well- 
built city of marble and stone, stretching along 
one busy street and rising to the wooded hill in 
the rear. 

It looks inviting, but when you go ashore the 
disillusionment comes. The artistic stone and 
marble palaces are but ornamented stucco build- 
ings, framed of timbers and joined and fastened 
in a way to make them yielding, then lathed 
with bamboo and coated with cement. In the 
earthquakes, which are so frequent here, they 
sway and bend without collapsing. The rows 
of arcades and balconies along the street El Male- 
con look rather like Shanghai. The Guayas 
rushes by in a muddy flood, bamboo poles and 
logs floating on its surface — quantities of little 



IN THE LAND OF PANAMA HATS 163 

green islands that have been washed away from 
the verdant shores. 

Before noon rain was falling, the first that we 
have seen since we left Buenos Aires, many 
weeks ago. The falling drops look most refresh- 
ing, yet we are not content. It is so humid and 
hot and oppressive that we ungratefully wish 
ourselves almost anywhere else. Distance cer- 
tainly lends enchantment to the tropics. They are 
so beautiful to look at, so lovely to dream about 
and so uncomfortable to live in. What a blessing 
the changing seasons are to us! This monoto- 
nous, enervating tropical heat is fatal to energy 
and buoyant health. It is appropriate that the 
most noticeable building in Guayaquil is a hos- 
pital. Fever claims hundreds of victims every 
year. There are no sewers, malarial smells are 
everywhere and the death rate is appalling. 

The old market house and the shops on either 
side of the principal streets were crowded with 
merchandise of all sorts, a confusion of wares be- 
ing hung up in every available nook, quite like 
the bazaars of the Orient, in their crowded stuffi- 
ness. The sidewalk venders added to the general 



164 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

muddle of untidiness and dirt. The crowds of 
people, as usual on this continent, were of all 
shades of color, from black to white. 

Running the length of El Malecon was a small 
railway for hauling freight to and from the docks 
and warehouses. Business seemed to be flour- 
ishing. At the postoffice we examined a list of 
the mails from Guayaquil to Quito with interest. 
It takes five days by coach and mule to go from 
this principal port of Ecuador to the capital, 
though the distance is only two hundred miles. 
Quito lies almost directly on the equator in the 
great tableland between two giant ranges of the 
Andes. A cluster of snowy peaks surrounds it 
and the scenery is said to be as fine as any found 
in the Andes. 

No, according to a well-established precedent, 
Panama hats do not come from Panama. They 
are as thick along the northwestern coast of 
South America as fezzes are in Turkey, but they 
are all made in Ecuador and Peru, principally 
at Payta, and the best market for them is Guaya- 
quil. We had carried Panama hats on the list 
ever since we left New York, but we found our- 




THE PALACE, LIMA 



IN THE LAND OF PANAMA HATS 165 

selves as babes in the wood when it came to 
buying them. They run in price all the way from 
twenty cents to one hundred and fifty dollars. 
The poorest of them are neatly woven and the 
fine ones are really wonderful. It seems incred- 
ible that it could cost one hundred and fifty dol- 
lars to weave any straw hat, but Doctor Lopez, 
a Guayaquil acquaintance, paid that for one 
which he sent to the Paris Exposition. At his 
office we saw one which cost one hundred dollars, 
truly a marvel of the weaver's art. Even under 
the microscope, the texture seemed to have the 
mathematical perfection of machine-turning on a 
watch. Such a hat is made only by the most ex- 
pert of workmen, and he can work at it only in 
the early morning and in the evening for a few 
hours. In the middle of the day the air is too 
dry to turn the straw so perfectly. You must 
have patience if you want to possess a treasure 
like this, for it takes months to fill an order. The 
straw is obtained from a long grass of the coun- 
try, and the hat is plaited from the center of the 
crown outward, over a wooden form. What a 
world of patience it must take to turn and turn 



166 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

the strands so carefully while the hat slowly 
grows. 

The general effect of the hats is much the same, 
with their low crowns and rolling brims, but a 
comparison quickly shows the difference of the 
quality and grain, and one quickly grows to be 
appreciative. The dealers have them piled in 
great stacks, doubled and flattened out so they 
fit inside one another. With a deft pinch and a 
roll, they open them out in quick succession before 
your eyes, and it is safe to say that by the time 
you have seen a couple of dozen, you will be be- 
wildered. What a time we had before we finally 
selected our three ! With the piles to select from, 
and fit, shape, quality, size and becomingness to 
consider, it became a question for the wisdom of 
Solomon. We almost lost our minds over them. 
The hats are unlined and unribboned, and you 
know the wretched little dealer is trying to sell 
you a twenty-dollar hat for forty if he can. He 
is like Mahomet, the rug dealer, — as honest as 
he can afford to be. But the three we bought 
grew even handsomer and increased in value as 
we brought them toward home. 




A STREET IN LIMA 



IN THE LAND OF PANAMA HATS 167 

While we were buying hats and the unmatch- 
able hammocks of South America, the Palena 
was taking on eight hundred tons of cocoa-beans, 
a very valuable cargo, most of it on its way to 
chocolate-loving France. The natives who han- 
dle the heavy bags are powerfully developed fel- 
lows. The cocoa-bean is the seed of a tropical 
fruit. They put it wrong end first in Spanish 
and call it cacao. The inside of the bean fur- 
nishes the well-known chocolate, and the hull 
makes the cocoa. The beans look much like lima 
beans with a reddish brown skin, and the dark 
brown center has a nutty and slightly bitter taste. 

One of the luxuries along the west coast is the 
delicious honey we find made from the sap of 
certain palms as we make our maple syrup. 
F. F. P — throws caution to the winds and eats 
great quantities of it for all the world like a 
greedy boy. 

The English colonel is with us again, and he 
and the captain are sitting near as I write, poring 
over stamps. I believe the stamp fever is in- 
creasing instead of abating. The captain has 
just given me the handsome Chilian dollar stamp. 



168 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

How good it will be to stretch our legs, as the 
English say, at Panama. 

Poky is the only word that describes our pro- 
gress northward. Ten days from Valparaiso to 
Callao, eight days from Callao to Panama, and 
then about three weeks more from Panama to 
San Francisco. With the Atlantic service it 
could be done in about one-third the time. Early 
morning arrivals seemed to be the order of the 
day on the Palena, and the morning of the eighth 
day from Callao found us in the harbor of 
Panama. What a time we had hanging round, 
as F — calls it, while boxes and bundles and bales 
were hoisted on and off ! As our old darky Jerry 
used to say, it got to be "monopolous." 

How pretty Panama looked from the harbor, 
its red-tiled roofs standing out against the rich 
tropical green! The coloring in the tropics is 
enchanting. The landscape is as riotous in tints 
as the plumage of the birds and the petals of the 
flowers. 




A CONTENTED MILK PEDDLER 



CHAPTER XIV 

ACROSS THE ISTHMUS 

It all depends on the point of view. If you 
should run down to the Isthmus direct from New 
York, especially in midwinter, and exchange, 
almost magically, a nipping frosty atmosphere 
for the moist breath and waving palms of the 
tropics, no doubt you would be struck by the 
strangeness of the conditions there, the people 
and the climate. But we had come all the long 
way up the coast from Valparaiso, and even be- 
fore that our path lay in a long and winding 
circle from New York, so a panorama of many 
nations had passed before our eyes, and, curi- 
ously enough, we found the Isthmus home-like! 
There were the Jamaica darkies, speaking Eng- 
lish, and that was sweet to our ears; there was 
the Hotel Washington at Colon, and the Fourth- 
of-July saloon ! 

I can imagine that some people would not ap- 
169 



170 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

prove of Panama. It is dirty and hot and smelly, 
with suggestions of yellow fever and kindred 
creepy things, but the narrow, irregular streets, 
where the balconied buildings almost nod to- 
gether, are quaint and interesting. You have the 
pleasant feeling that you are making explorations 
as you go about ; and you may even find ruins in 
Panama, picturesque and crumbling walls that 
suggest the abbeys of England, for the city is 
old and historic. The cathedral and churches 
are interesting, too. 

May is winter in Panama, called winter by 
courtesy because it is the beginning of the rainy 
season. We find it oppressively warm, with the 
humidity very high and the thermometer at 85. 
There is usually a fresh breeze, however, and 
Warm, heavy showers fall frequently. 

From the deck the passengers had picked out 
the entrance to the famous canal, and we made 
our way to the shore on a tug, passing between 
the lines of buoys that mark the channel, already 
partly dredged. The entrance lies a little above 
Panama and the railroad connects the two. We 
steered toward the company's big pier. The tide 



ACROSS THE ISTHMUS 171 

was so low and the pier stood so high out of the 
water that we had to be hauled up in a cage-like 
elevator, dangling like flies, while our lives lit- 
erally hung by a thread. This is less humiliating, 
however, than being hoisted in a barrel to the 
ship's deck, with a row of gaping passengers 
hanging over the rail, rather wishing for a little 
excitement! This latter is the common fate of 
passengers at many ports on the almost harbor- 
less west coast. 

It is only forty-five miles from ocean to ocean 
by the railroad, which runs rather unexpectedly 
from northwest to southeast. My recollection of 
geography, as taught in the grammar grade, led 
me to think that the Isthmus would naturally be 
cut square across, from east to west, but I had 
forgotten the crook. The route lies through the 
jungle, and it is a popular saying that in building 
the railroad a life was lost for every tie in the 
track. The difficulties must have been enormous, 
though one hardly realizes it now. One has to 
peer into the thick tangle of the swampy forest, 
a network of palms, trees, ropy vines and creep- 
ers, that most of the time crowds to the track's 



172 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

edge, to realize what it means to blaze a way for 
the iron horse in a tropical wilderness. De Les- 
seps fought the desert sands at Suez, the dark 
jungle at Panama. 

There are a number of towns along the way, 
now inhabited entirely by the blacks and a few 
Chinese. The native house has walls of bamboo 
poles and a thatch of palm leaves, a picturesque 
affair that harmonizes with the jungle, but, alas, 
corrugated iron, that is making ruthless attacks 
against the picturesque all over the world, is 
finding its way here. The route of the canal is 
practically the route of the railroad, so one has 
almost constant and interesting views of the 
famous attempt at canal making, though it is 
difficult to judge the value or extent of what has 
been done. The vegetation quickly creeps over 
the earthwork, and the ditch, as it would be bet- 
ter called now, soon fills with loose washings. 
It is plain that something has been accomplished, 
however, and at Culebra, the backbone of the low 
mountain range, where thousands of men worked 
for years, a huge wedge has been taken out. It 
looks at this point as if a hopeful proportion of 





AN ISTHMIAN GIRL 



ACROSS THE ISTHMUS 173 

the excavations has been made. We heard stories 
of dredges set up and fraudulent excavations 
made, entirely off the route of the canal. The 
men who had commissions on supplies ordered 
them by wholesale, whether they were needed or 
not. The waste and mismanagement were colos- 
sal. Now everything is decay and desolation. 
The hundreds and hundreds of chalet-like houses 
built by the company, which dot the hillsides all 
the way, are for the most part empty and boarded 
up. They are all set on piles which lift them well 
above the ground. Many of them were never 
occupied. Their rotting verandas and shutters 
are dropping away. The negroes have taken 
possession of a few of the most convenient ones. 
Expensive dredges are left to fall to pieces, quan- 
tities of dump-cars, rails, and bridge materials 
lie in rusting heaps. One sees line after line of 
locomotives that have never been fired. The lies 
and deceptions and cruel losses that lie back of 
this strange state of affairs make the rotting 
ruins a melancholy spectacle. It is a lasting dis- 
grace to the French. There are many graves 
along the way, too, that remind one vividly of 



174 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

the great number who have met death in this far- 
away land. 

The wonderful Cordillera which runs from the 
north to the south of the Americas is visible even 
on the Isthmus, for there is a central ridge from 
which the country slopes in either direction to 
the sea. The lowest point in the whole range 
lies here, so this seems the natural place to 
attempt to force a passageway from ocean to 
ocean. 

The railroad ascends the course of a small 
stream on the Pacific side and descends the val- 
ley of the Chagres to the Atlantic. The pretty 
scenery of the Isthmus was a surprise. There 
are many wooded hills around which the rivers 
wind, taking the railroad along an almost con- 
tinually curving course. Everywhere is luxuri- 
ant green, and all over the lowlands is the fas- 
cinating, beautiful, unheal thful jungle. A little 
strip has been cleared on either side of the track, 
and here and there attempts have been made to 
cultivate bits of ground, but the jungle closes in 
like a green sea, tangled, impenetrable. Palms 
and bananas and bamboo are abundant, and we 



ACROSS THE ISTHMUS 175 

occasionally saw the handsome head of a splen- 
did tree, the gramalota, which rises on a lofty 
trunk and spreads its green branches like a mon- 
ster umbrella. One of these monarchs of the 
jungle escaped destruction in the clearing for the 
railway, and you might almost reach out and 
touch its great trunk as you pass. It was under 
this beautiful tree that one of the surveyors of 
the railroad died, and it stands as his monument. 

The darkies who inhabit the little settlements 
along the line live in the most primitive fashion. 
They offered us many strange fruits for sale. 
One looked like a huge cranberry, with a lima 
bean on the end for a stem. The flesh of this 
fruit felt exactly like a clam, but it tasted like a 
crab apple ! The oranges are sugar sweet. One 
is warned against the danger of eating fruit by 
the very cautious, but it is worth while to take 
one's life in one's hands occasionally, to eat a 
good mango. 

We had to remind ourselves that we were in a 
new country, the Republic of Colombia, with 
Bogota for capital, when we saw squads of sol- 
diers drilling ; such sorry-looking soldiers as they 



176 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

were, unkempt and ununi formed, the pawns in 
the game of revolution. There was skirmishing 
in the neighborhood, but it is a question whether 
any one knew what the fighting was about. 
Bogota is farther away from Panama than New 
York, I believe, in point of time, certainly in 
point of convenience. 

It seemed strange to see the posterish red and 
black signs of the Chinese shops along the way, 
with their spidery, almond-eyed proprietors sit- 
ting inside, as calm and inscrutable as they are in 
China. Most of the Chinese who were imported 
to work on the canal could not endure the climate 
at all. They died like flies. One of the stations 
along the way is called Matachin — dead China- 
man. People tell awesome tales of the old days 
when the yellow fever raged and claimed its vic- 
tims by the thousands, when gold flowed like 
water, and men gambled and drank and schemed 
for fortunes in the face of death. The Panama 
lottery formerly had drawings of twenty-five 
thousand dollars each week. Sarah Bernhardt 
came out to Panama and played for five nights 
there to crowded houses, with seats at ten dollars 



ACROSS THE ISTHMUS 177 

gold. It was a mad dance they tripped till the 
bubble burst. 

Colon, formerly called Aspinwall, which is at 
the Atlantic end of the railway, is little more than 
a railroad town. The poor suburbs are as bad as 
anything I have ever seen. The people live in 
squalid houses that are raised only a few inches 
above the marshy ground, and surrounded by 
stagnant and slimy pools. Ugh ! how dreadful it 
is, in that miasmatic region ! The poor souls ^re 
the riffraff of humanity, an unruly crew from 
far and near, and the Board of Health loses no 
sleep over them. Many of the good buildings 
put up in the town when Colon was to be the 
metropolis of the Isthmus have been destroyed by 
fire, against which there is no protection. What 
are left are ragged and untidy or worse. 

Over in the part called Cristobal Colon, the 
quarter nearest the entrance of the canal, is a fine 
curving avenue of cocoanut palms, which shade 
some attractive houses. These palms have a curi- 
ous effect. The trunks dart up at every angle and 
end in a plumy burst of verdure, like so many 
green sky-rockets. Along the sea-beach is a line 



178 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

of valuable concrete blocks, which were to have 
been used in dam building, but were finally 
dumped there as a breakwater. The so-called 
palaces of the De Lesseps, father and son, at the 
end of the avenue, are large, handsome frame 
houses, of a Swiss type, with overhanging roofs 
and wide verandas. One is closed and emptied 
of the handsome furniture it once contained, the 
other is occupied. The sky is bright blue, the sea 
laps lazily, the palm trees drone in the light 
breeze, but the air is moist and hot, with that 
irritating stickiness that makes one forget all 
one's blessings, so I did not envy the dwellers in 
Cristobal Colon. 

The Hotel Washington, which lies at the oppo- 
site end of Colon from the avenue of palms, 
dates back to the completion of the railroad in 
1852. It has a distinct charm. The verandas of 
the rambling old building close around a tri- 
angular garden filled with palms, and beyond 
you look out over the Caribbean. 

As I sat on the veranda, an old colored man 
came sidling up, and, smiling by way of intro- 
duction, asked me if I wouldn't like to have him 



i 

1 




| 


? i 


... 

X 




1 




mm, 








% 








^jil 



ACROSS THE ISTHMUS 179 

get me a cocoanut from the tree. These negro 
servants came from Jamaica, and it was a great 
pleasure to hear again our language, with that 
peculiar soft inflection of the negro's voice. 
Negroes and Chinese who speak Spanish only- 
are among the curiosities of South America. I 
told the old black fellow that I would like very 
much to taste a green cocoanut, and looked about 
for a bit of silver to save him from disappoint- 
ment, also warning him not to fall and break his 
neck before my eyes. He went up the tall tree 
like a monkey and soon began to drop the cocoa- 
nuts, which hung in clusters around the base of 
the leaves. They came down with a plunk which 
warned one against strolling absent-mindedly in 
a cocoanut grove. I suppose my wily darky- 
knew all the time that these were too green to be 
good, but he adroitly planned to slip away before 
I made the discovery. A little later in the season 
the milk is sweet, refreshingly cool and nourish- 
ing, and the part which finally forms the nut is a 
palatable jelly, to be eaten with a spoon. While 
the darky hung in his airy perch, a white man 
crossed the garden. "Hi, Murphy," he called, 



180 ONE WAY ROUND SOUTH AMERICA 

"save me a couple of them, will you ?" I wonder 
where and how Murphy got his name. 

Everywhere there were hints that home lay at 
the other end of the steamship line. We stood 
on the deck of the Alliance as she was ready to 
sail, and our heels fairly stuck to the boards when 
we learned that she would be in New York in 
six days. But we had chosen the long- way round 
by San Francisco. If you are ever in Panama at 
the end of a long journey, think twice before you 
decide on the long way home. 

If you hear that I am nearing home, I wish 
you'd engage all the laundresses in the vicinity 
for me. This living in trunks in the moist air 
and heat of a tropical country damages all one's 
good clothes, and we'll be in a sadly unwashed 
state when we reach our native land. Why does 
not some clever traveler invent a folding ironing- 
board in these days of collapsible furniture, one 
that would fit in a trunk? F— was a perfect joke 
before we got back from our railway journey 
across the Isthmus. He wore a white duck suit, 
which was not perfectly fresh when we started, 
and all the dirt seemed to fly to it and stick. We 



ACROSS THE ISTHMUS 181 

were only gone from the ship two days, but he 
looked like a small boy who had been making 
mud pies, and I took my turn at teasing. It 
really did embarrass him, for he hates dirt and 
felt very uncomfortable in such a soiled suit of 
clothes. I told him that the sight of him like 
that was a great disenchantment. 

Hooray ! We're off for San Francisco to-day, 
and you'll get no further news from your chicks 
till we reach that port. 

After all is said and done, the best part of a 
journey is the coming home. Home to our na- 
tive land; home to our own state; home to our 
own city; home to our own books and pictures 
and dear familiar corners; home to those who 
love us and forgive us! How I wish that the 
Palena could just now take wings like the swift- 
flying sea-gulls in the air about us — be trans- 
formed by some magic into an air-ship that 
would float us toward home quickly and quietly. 
Who knows but our next long journey may be 
made in such an air-ship! Good-by, till you see 
us. Hooray ! Hooray ! 



19&5 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




\ 



